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(Apr 19, 2018 1:00 AM CDT) Scott Pruitt's week isn't getting any easier: White House budget director Mick Mulvaney said Wednesday that he's planning to investigate the embattled EPA chief's activities, which include allegedly violating the law by spending $43,000 in taxpayer funds on a soundproof phone booth for his office, Politico reports. We take the anti-deficiency statute, which limits spending by federal agencies, very, very seriously, Mulvaney said during a House hearing, per Reuters. We will enforce the law, and we'll do so in a transparent fashion. Federal agencies are required to notify Congress when they spend more than $5,000 improving the offices of presidential appointees, though EPA officials argue that installing the booth shouldn't be classed as redecoration. Some 39 senators, meanwhile--38 Democrats and an independent--introduced a resolution calling for Pruitt to step down over what Sen. Tom Udall called a list of ethical transgressions that grows longer by the day. Udall said Pruitt completely violated the trust of the American people with the alleged lapses, including travel expenses and the renting of a condo from a lobbyist's wife. The AP reports that, according to records released this week, Pruitt, who says he needs to fly first class for security purposes, flew coach on two personal trips home to Oklahoma last year that were not paid for by the taxpayer. Pruitt flew on a companion pass obtained with an adviser's frequent flier miles, while the government paid for his 20-man security detail to travel with him.

(Apr 1, 2020 7:46 AM CDT) If now sounds like a good time to escape to the bottom of the Mariana Trench, with $750,000 you probably can. For that price, explorer and retired naval officer Victor Vescovo will take daring travelers to the deepest point on Earth, Challenger Deep in Mariana Trench, which has been visited by fewer people than have been to space. With his exploration company Caladan Oceanic, Vescovo--just the fourth person to visit the spot--has already filled up two eight-day expeditions scheduled for May, per Popular Mechanics. Travelers no more than 220 pounds will take a retired US Navy ship to the Western Pacific Ocean, 200 miles southwest of Guam, before descending 35,843 feet in the $37 million deep-ocean submarine, Limiting Factor, reports Bloomberg. The view: a whole lot of black. Once you get past a thousand feet or two, it starts to get really dark really quickly, Vescovo tells Bloomberg. Then it's just really peaceful, and there's virtually no sense of motion in any direction. At the bottom, travelers can retrieve rocks and even bacterial colonies using a mechanical arm. And it's likely you'll see a new species, Vescovo says. The trips will help fund Vescovo's continued exploration--he's the first person to reach the depths of all five oceans--and perhaps settle a dispute with director James Cameron. Cameron, who argues the bottom of the trench is flat, disputes the claim that Vescovo reached 52 feet deeper in Challenger Deep than he did, per Popular Mechanics. Vescovo hopes to confirm his argument with outings this year. (More on his wild adventures here.)

(Sep 15, 2019 12:25 PM CDT) The United Auto Workers union announced that its roughly 49,000 members at General Motors plants in the US will go on strike Sunday night because contract negotiations with the automaker had broken down, the AP reports. The decision came after about 200 plant-level union leaders voted unanimously in favor of a walkout during a meeting Sunday morning in Detroit. We stood up for General Motors when they needed us most. Now we are standing together in unity and solidarity for our members, union Vice President Terry Dittes said in a statement. It's still possible that bargainers could return to the table and hammer out an agreement, but union spokesman Brian Rothenberg said at a news conference that it would be unlikely.

(Mar 30, 2020 11:05 AM CDT) The figure of up to 200,000 possible American deaths from the coronavirus is now in wide circulation, with Dr. Anthony Fauci and President Trump both mentioning the number on Sunday. On Monday, the White House coronavirus response coordinator agreed, and Dr. Deborah Birx cautioned that it's actually a best-case scenario. If we do things together well, almost perfectly, we could get in the range of 100,000 to 200,000, Birx said on the Today show, reports NBC News. I think in some of the metro areas we were late in getting people to follow the 15-day guidelines, she said, adding that she and other officials are very worried about every city in the United States.

(Mar 1, 2020 1:00 PM) A CBC report on Subway's chicken sandwiches is going to cost the chain fairly big bucks--regardless of the report's accuracy, the CBC reports. A judge has ordered Subway to reimburse the CBC $500,000 in legal costs after the chain tried to sue over the eye-grabbing 2017 story. The report claimed that chicken in Subway sandwiches contained only about half chicken DNA, and the majority of the remaining DNA? Soy. Subway denied the report and sued for $210 million, but the CBC got Ontario Superior Court Justice Ed Morgan to dismiss the claim under what's called anti-SLAPP legislation, which guards free speech in matters of public interest. The chain fought the dismissal notion and lost in a lengthy court battle. Subway focused on the issue of truth in the news magazine item that was the subject of the suit--an issue which goes to the heart of the merits of Subway's defamation claim, but is only relevant in a minor way to the SLAPP criteria, Morgan said. Meanwhile, Subway says the CBC aired the story recklessly and maliciously and caused significant harm to franchise owners, Fox News reported last year. The chain also criticized the chicken DNA analysis at Trent University in Canada and said two independent studies found its chicken contained 100 percent chicken breast with added seasoning. Morgan has told Trent University to pay Subway $220,000 in costs. As for the CBC, it stands by the story and says it's happy with this decision.

(Apr 20, 2019 5:40 PM CDT) A Pennsylvania dad's frustration has boiled over and put his son's math teacher in the hot seat, Fox News reports. On Tuesday, Chris Piland posted a Facebook photo of his son's second-grade math assignment with a comment from the teacher: Absolutely pathetic. He answered 13 in 3 min! Sad. Piland fumed, My son Kamdyn's teacher has been so rude to him and myself all year he comes home with this and I am beyond frustrated that someone would write this on a childs [sic] work such great motivation. His post went viral and triggered an online petition to have the teacher, Alyssa Rupp Bohenek, fired from Valley View Elementary School in Archibald, Penn. Over 16,000 have signed as of this writing. No reason to humiliate a child or anyone else, writers one of the signers. The Valley View School District is investigating, but school superintendent Rose Minniti tells the Scranton Times-Tribune this is no slam dunk. It's a personnel issue and the results of that are not going to be dictated by social media, says Minniti. It's going to be dictated by the facts and evidence. A counter-petition has appeared to save Bohenek's job, saying she should be reprimanded ... not fired, though it has only 740 signatures thus far. The teacher's feedback was clearly aimed at the parent [for] not encouraging or engaging in the homework unless the child has learning difficulties, says one signer. Indeed, Bohenek sent parents a letter this school year saying homework is to be completed together with an adult, NOT alone! Bohenek has taught in the Valley View district for six years and her father teaches at Valley View High, per Heavy.

(Jul 10, 2019 9:48 AM CDT) The S&P 500 crossed the 3,000 threshold for the first time ever Wednesday, as expectations for a July rate cut rise, reports CNBC. Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell said Wednesday that many Fed officials believe a weakening global economy and rising trade tensions have strengthened the case for looser interest-rate policies. Delivering the Fed's semi-annual monetary report to Congress, Powell sent the strongest signal yet that the central bank is ready to cut interest rates for the first time in a decade, possibly as soon as the July meeting. Powell said that since Fed officials met last month, uncertainties around trade tensions and concerns about the strength of the global economy continue to weigh on the US economic outlook. Meanwhile, inflation has fallen farther from the Fed's target. Many investors have put the odds of a rate cut this month at 100%, reports the AP. The Fed's benchmark rate currently stands in a range of 2.25% to 2.5% after the central bank boosted rates four times last year. The Fed last cut rates in 2008 at the height of the financial crisis. Powell's statement kicked off two days of testimony, first before the House Financial Services Committee and then Thursday before the Senate Banking Committee. In his testimony, Powell repeated a pledge the Fed made in its June policy statement that officials would act as appropriate to sustain the expansion. However, he added that many Fed officials saw that the case for a looser monetary policy had strengthened.

(Oct 12, 2020 3:16 AM CDT) As New York City went back under lockdown amid a resurgence of the coronavirus, the city issued more than $150,000 in fines during the first weekend of the new restrictions, it announced on Twitter. Authorities gave out 62 tickets to people, businesses, and religious gathering places that violated rules having to do with gathering size, masks, or social distancing, the New York Times reports. For example, a restaurant and at least five houses of worship in the city's red zones where COVID-19 infection rates are highest, could each face up to $15,000 in fines for large gatherings, which NYC Mayor Bill de Blasio said last week was the upper end of the penalties, per the New York Post. Penalties for those who refuse to wear masks were to be as high as $1,000. Most of the surges are being seen in Brooklyn and Queens, often in Orthodox Jewish neighborhoods due to what officials say are large gatherings and a lack of social distancing. New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo issued an executive order last week in which rules for gatherings in the city are based on the zone the neighborhood is in; the 20 red zone neighborhoods are seeing a positivity rate of 5.7%, while the rate across the rest of the state was less than 1% if excluding those clusters. But religious leaders have accused Cuomo and de Blasio of targeting religious minorities, with one national Orthodox organization and a Catholic diocese even suing to challenge the new requirements. The courts, however, allowed the new rules to proceed. Also among those cited this weekend? An illegal rave in Queens with more than 110 guests.

(Nov 1, 2018 2:34 PM CDT) A massive Subaru recall involves not just Subaru vehicles but one Toyota model. Subaru's Forester SUV, Impreza compact, and BRZ sports car are affected, as well as the Subaru-made Toyota 86 sports car, sold in the US as the Scion FR-S. More than 400,000 vehicles, all made in 2012 and 2013, are affected around the world; 80,000 of them are Toyotas. The problem is a faulty engine part--a spring that keeps the engine valve closed when fuel is being combusted. The valve spring can fracture, causing the engine to stall, the Wall Street Journal reports. In a separate recall, Toyota is recalling more than one million vehicles worldwide because the air bags could inflate without a crash or fail to work in a crash, the AP reports. The only vehicles impacted in the US are about 17,000 Scion xA vehicles from 2004 through 2006. (There's bad news for Honda CR-V owners.

(Aug 26, 2019 2:05 AM CDT) St. Louis is offering rewards totaling $100,000 in four unsolved child murders, including that of Jurnee Thompson, an 8-year-old girl who was shot dead outside a restaurant Friday. A $25,000 reward is being offered for information leading to an arrest in that case and in three other unsolved killings since April, NBC reports. Kayden Johnson, 2, was shot dead in his home along with his 18-year-old mother. Eddie Hill, 10, was shot dead on his front porch in a drive-by shooting and 3-year-old Kennedi Powell was gunned down outside her home as her father handed out slices of pizza to children. Authorities say the rewards are being offered until Sept. 1. Mayor Lyda Krewson says the deadline reflects the urgency of the situation. At least a dozen children 16 or younger have died in gun violence in St. Louis this summer and an arrest has been made in just one case, that of 7-year-old Xaviour Usanga, who was shot dead earlier this month. Police say that in some cases, people are not coming forward with information because of fear of retaliation from gangs, the AP reports. Around St. Louis, we don't snitch on people, one victim's brother tells the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. We keep it in the streets. When the rewards were announced, St. Louis Director of Public Safety Jimmie Edwards said he knew there were many other homicides in our city without an arrest yet and he wished the city had enough money to offer rewards in every case.

(Feb 16, 2020 4:58 PM) More than 1,100 former Department of Justice officials have signed an online statement calling for Attorney General William Barr to resign. Barr may insist he's not working at the president's behest, but his actions in doing the President's personal bidding unfortunately speak louder than his words, reads the statement, which CNN reports was signed mostly by former prosecutors with the department who have worked under both Republican and Democratic administrations. The constitution requires the Justice Department to be impartial, to treat all Americans equally under the law, and to prosecute free of any outside influence. DOJ lawyers stand for the proposition that political interference in the conduct of a criminal prosecution is anathema to the Department's core mission and to its sacred obligation to ensure equal justice under the law, the statement reads. And yet, President Trump and Attorney General Barr have openly and repeatedly flouted this fundamental principle, most recently in connection with the sentencing of President Trump's close associate, Roger Stone, the statement continues. When the department took the unheard-of step to overrule the prosecutors on the Stone case, it was clearly giving preferential treatment to a Trump confidant, the statement says. Such behavior is a grave threat to the fair administration of justice, it continues. Governments that use the enormous power of law enforcement to punish their enemies and reward their allies are not constitutional republics; they are autocracies. The statement calls on current DOJ officials to report abuses of power and be prepared to remove themselves from cases or even resign from the department if needed.

(Jun 20, 2019 7:34 AM CDT) A Florida city has agreed to pay the equivalent of around $600,000 to hackers after becoming the latest victim of a very 21st-century crime. At a meeting Monday, the city council in Riviera Beach unanimously agreed to pay 65 Bitcoin to hackers who had paralyzed its computer system with a virus sent in an infected email attachment opened by a police department employee on May 29, the New York Times reports. The ransomware attack took city systems offline, forcing the police and fire departments in the city of 35,000 people to write 911 calls down on paper; the Sun Sentinel reports they take in about 280 calls daily. Utility bills had to be paid in person or by mail, with only checks or cash accepted. The payment is being handled by the city's insurance carrier. As with similar attacks, which are increasingly common, there is no guarantee that paying the ransom will actually result in the data being released. It's almost where I can't even believe that this happens but I'm learning that it's not as uncommon as we would think it is, Council Chairwoman KaShamba Miller-Anderson said Wednesday, per the Palm Beach Post, which reports 50 US cities have been attacked in the last two years. Every day I'm learning how this even operates, because it just sounds so far fetched to me. The city is planning to spend around $1 million on new computer hardware that will be less vulnerable to cyberattacks. (The most common tool used in ransomware attacks was developed by the NSA.)

(May 8, 2020 1:48 PM CDT) Americans who received a $1,200 stimulus check from the government to help mitigate financial losses during the coronavirus pandemic could now be coming to a sobering realization: It may not be enough. Three senators are saying the same, and they've just put forth a big idea to deal with the issue, per Politico. On Friday, Sens. Kamala Harris, Bernie Sanders, and Ed Markey unveiled the Monthly Economic Crisis Support Act, which would give a monthly $2,000 check to each American who makes less than $120,000 a year. Married couples filing jointly would get a total of $4,000, while each child (up to three of them per family) would bring in $2,000. The payments would be retroactive to March and would continue until three months after the virus emergency is officially declared over by Health and Human Services. Congress [has] a responsibility to make sure that people aren't left behind, a release from Harris says. Every US resident would receive a payment, even if they don't have a Social Security number or didn't file taxes last year. Debt collectors would also be forbidden from taking the payments. Forbes notes that it's tough to see the billing passing as is, given that it would give a family of four $8,000 a month. That translates to $96,000 a year, above the median income of $62,000 in 2018. The bill is also competing for funds with similar ones in the works; the magazine notes that while it is possible an additional stimulus bill may be passed, we will likely see major revisions that would reduce [the] total expenditure of this or other proposals.

(Sep 11, 2018 8:07 AM CDT) Police have stepped up their presence in a Paris neighborhood ever since Kim Kardashian endured a frightening jewel robbery in her hotel there in 2016. That didn't stop another apparent heist on Friday afternoon from the Paris Ritz, where an unnamed Saudi princess said jewels worth more than $925,000 were stolen from her suite, Reuters reports. A police source says there were no apparent signs of a break-in, and the woman told prosecutors she hadn't had the jewels in the suite's safe. The area, which hosts luxury stores and jewelers, is a not-infrequent target for armed thieves, and the Ritz itself was just robbed in January of millions of dollars' worth of jewelry from its lobby by thieves with axes. All the stolen items in that case were recovered.

(Dec 7, 2018 6:37 AM) It's expensive being Lance Armstrong, especially after his endorsements fell by the wayside and he was hit with various lawsuits as a result of his doping scandal. It could have been devastatingly expensive, in fact, except for the one thing the elite cyclist says saved our family : an investment almost 10 years ago in a little company called Uber. Armstrong, 47, tells CNBC that his $100,000 gamble in a venture capital fund back in 2009 has paid off with a number too good to be true, though he's keeping quiet on the exact figure. To offer some clue as to how lucrative his asset has become: Uber was valued at $3.7 million when Chris Sacca's Lowercase Capital first pumped Armstrong's money into it; now the ride-sharing company is aiming for a $120 billion valuation ahead of a possible IPO. Armstrong tells CNBC's Andrew Sorkin he didn't know at the time that Chris Sacca's Lowercase Capital was investing in Uber, thinking instead Sacca bought a bunch of Twitter shares from employees or former employees. When pressed by Sorkin on his windfall and whether it was perhaps 10, 20, 30, 40, or 50 million, Armstrong simply agrees, It's one of those, per the BBC. Armstrong, who tells Sorkin the past six years have been terrible and really sucked, says his behavior, perhaps even more so than the doping itself, was what led to his downfall. If I did all that [doping] but I was a gentleman ... and treated people with respect, they would've let me off, he says. It was the way I acted that was my undoing. Despite all that, Armstrong notes: I don't feel like a failure. (Armstrong was once fined $10 million for an unparalleled pageant of fraud. )

(Mar 29, 2020 10:22 AM CDT) The US could have 100,000 to 200,000 deaths before the COVID-19 pandemic is through, Dr. Anthony Fauci said Sunday. Although the projections could change, the infectious disease expert said, We're going to have millions of cases, the Hill reports. Fauci, a member of the president's coronavirus task force, made the comments on CNN's State of the Union. The US already has more confirmed coronavirus cases than any country in the world. The original 15-day period for following social distancing guidelines would end Monday, but Fauci said he doubts they'll be lifted. It's more likely to be a matter of weeks before restrictions are eased, he said, per Politico. President Trump's decision to drop the idea of quarantines for New York, New Jersey and Connecticut happened after very intensive discussions with advisers on Saturday night, Fauci said. More than half the nation's new infections are in the New York City area, he said. We made it clear and he agreed, it would be much better to do what's called a strong advisory, he said, per CNN. Trump asked the CDC on Saturday night to issue the advisory, which asks people in those states to refrain from non-essential domestic travel for the next two weeks. You don't want to get to the point that you're enforcing things that would create a bigger difficulty, morale and otherwise, when you could probably accomplish the same goal, Fauci said Sunday.

(Aug 21, 2018 7:06 PM CDT) Low-numbered Delaware license plates are in demand. Someone paid $410,000 for the plate bearing the number 20 when it went up for auction Sunday at the Rehoboth Beach Convention Center, the AP reports. Bidding started low at $210,000, with the price rising by $5,000 to $10,000 every half-minute of the six and a half minute auction, the Delmarva Daily Times reports.

(Jul 7, 2019 11:20 AM CDT) In a sweeping restructuring, Deutsche Bank announced Sunday that it will cut 18,000 jobs and abandon its global equities sales and trading business. The bank intends to cut costs as much as $19 billion in coming years, CNBC reports. That would leave it with 74,000 employees by 2022. The bank expects to report a net loss of more than $3 billion for the second quarter. There was no word on where the jobs would be cut, but the bank is dropping all business involving the buying and selling of shares, and much of that work happens in London and New York. Deutsche Bank's supervisory board finalized the restructuring plan Sunday. The restructuring signals that Deutsche Bank is abandoning its ambition to be a global trading powerhouse, per the Wall Street Journal. After years of decline, the bank will retreat to being a German bank concentrating on serving European companies and retail-banking customers. The plan calls for enhancing segments such as asset management, currency trading, corporate-cash management and trade finance. Incremental cuts and exploring mergers hasn't helped. The bank still will face challenges in cutting the costs and assets involved with the operations it wants to shed. Part of the second-quarter loss will cover restructuring costs, per the BBC.

(Feb 13, 2020 10:14 AM) Jeff Gebhart wants a girlfriend, and he's got $25,000 to help him find one. KCTV reports the 47-year-old from Prairie Village, Kan., became fed up with both online dating and more traditional ways of finding a mate, so the entrepreneur hit upon a more novel idea: Offer a whole lot of matchmaking money. CBS Sacramento notes Gebhart debuted his own dating site Sunday, exclusively dedicated to finding himself a new partner, and he'll give $25,000 to anyone who sends the perfect match his way. He'll also sweeten the pot by donating $25,000 to a no-kill dog shelter or charity. I'm a happy guy with an unbelievable life, he notes on his site, which adds he's been in several long-term relationships but has never been engaged or married. I don't need a person to 'complete' me, but I'm looking for a person with qualities that will allow us to complement each other. If this looks like easy money, there are stipulations. CBS News lays out the requirements, including that, for the matchmaker to collect the dough, the person Gebhart is matched up with must date him and him alone for a year. Even then, the cash is doled out in installments: five $5,000 payments over a five-year stretch. If Gebhart and the gal split before then, the matchmaker gets only what he or she has earned to that point. There's also an online quiz applicants will need to take to see if their personalities sync with his. You have a big number that apply, you put them through a Willy Wonka machine, and the ones that come out are the ones that would be great candidates for me, he tells KCTV. What he's looking for: a lady who's fun, easy to spend time with ... confident, driven ... and has a zest for life. The main objective of this is to find the right girl for me, wherever she is, he tells KCTV.

(Apr 22, 2020 11:00 AM CDT) A Minnesota contract egg farmer says his livelihood has been erased along with 61,000 chickens owing to a drop in demand triggered by the coronavirus pandemic. Kerry Mergen and his wife, Barb, produced 4,500 dozen eggs per day, which were turned into fluid egg and sent to food service companies across North America, reports the Minneapolis Star Tribune. They received about $700 daily from Daybreak Foods, which owned the chickens and covered the cost of feed. But as demand suddenly dropped, Daybreak chose to end its contract with the Mergens months early. And on April 9, a crew arrived at the farm near Albany. Workers culled the still productive flock using carbon dioxide, then hauled away the carcasses to be turned into dog food. The longer I was there, the more disgusted and disappointed I was knowing that I'm not going to see anything put back in my checkbook again, says Mergen, who adds he doesn't qualify for unemployment insurance and is on a waitlist for federal aid. When they euthanized the birds, that was our paycheck euthanized, says Barb. She notes the couple would need a large loan to buy their own chickens and more money to pay for equipment to grade eggs for the retail market. There, demand for eggs is rising, along with prices, per the Wall Street Journal. Demand for fluid egg, however, is declining along with food-service orders--a fact Cargill cited last week in temporarily shutting its fluid egg plant in Big Lake, Minn., where many of the Mergens' eggs were sent.

(May 3, 2020 1:55 PM CDT) Faced with 20,000 coronavirus deaths and counting, the nation's nursing homes are pushing back against a potential flood of lawsuits with a sweeping lobbying effort to get states to grant them emergency protection from claims of inadequate care, the AP reports. At least 15 states have enacted laws or governors' orders that explicitly or apparently provide nursing homes and long-term care facilities some protection from lawsuits arising from the crisis. And in the case of New York, which leads the nation in deaths in such facilities, a lobbying group wrote the first draft of a measure that apparently makes it the only state with specific protection from both civil lawsuits and criminal prosecution. Now the industry is forging ahead with a campaign to get other states on board with a simple argument.

(Sep 24, 2018 7:27 AM CDT) He is conscious, and he is safe. With those words, an Indian navy rep revealed the status of sailor Abhilash Tomy, who'd placed an emergency call from his yacht during a bid to make it around the world in the Golden Globe Race. Per NPR, Tomy's vessel became dismasted Friday during a storm in the Indian Ocean; with his satellite phone broken, Tomy sent a message from a texting unit noting his back was seriously hurt and that he was initially immobilized. Lugged cans of ice tea. Having that. Vomiting continuously. Chest burning, was a subsequent message the 39-year-old Indian navy commander sent Sunday, per the BBC. Race organizers soon became concerned after Tomy stopped replying to their messages, CNN notes. Rescuers from different nations rushed to get to him, with a French fishing vessel finding him first, drifting about 2,000 miles off the coast of Western Australia. The Golden Globe, which kicked off in France on July 1, is a 30,000-mile circumnavigation, with competitors eschewing all modern tech (e.g., GPS), save for satellite communications. Of the 18 sailors who started the race, just 11 are still in it, per the BBC (NPR says 10). Tomy's 36-foot yacht, the Thuriya, is a reproduction of the Suhaili, which won the first Golden Globe 50 years ago with Sir Robin Knox-Johnston at the helm. Knox-Johnston tweeted his own worries for Tomy on Sunday, writing: Very concerned about @abhilashtomy's injuries and will be glad when assistance can reach him. In a statement, race organizers praised Tomy's decision to drop out of the race as a responsible one, noting his engine and self-steering gear had been rendered useless when the yacht capsized and that the alternative would have been to continue sailing singlehanded and risk getting caught in another storm.

(Jun 18, 2019 2:59 PM CDT) Jeopardy! pro James Holzhauer is $2,462,216 richer, minus what he owes Uncle Sam. And minus a little more than $1,000. The Naperville, Illinois, native was asked to participate in this year's Naperville Pancreatic Cancer Research Walk, a fundraising event started by Ann Zediker, whose father died from the disease in 2010 just five months after learning he had it. The connection between Holzhauer and Zediker didn't just come down to local roots: Jeopardy! host Alex Trebek is fighting the same cancer. She says Holzhauer let her know he couldn't make the July event but sent a donation to her foundation, which has thus far raised more than half-a-million dollars, reports WLS-TV. The Naperville Sun cites the donation website in reporting Holzhauer gave $1,109.14, pairing it with the message For Alex Trebek and all the other survivors. Why $1,109.14? Nov. 9, 2014, is his daughter's birthday, a fact that Yahoo News reports he brought up on the show after winning $110,914 in the April 9 episode. (Trebek recently said he had mind-boggling news about his cancer.)

(May 4, 2020 1:32 AM CDT) President Trump is again raising his estimate of the projected US death toll from COVID-19. We're going to lose anywhere from 75, 80 to 100,000 people, he said Sunday at a Fox News virtual town hall, per the New York Times. Last week, the president used a figure of 70,000. But Trump says the toll would be much higher had his administration not responded the way it has. That's one of the reasons we're successful, if you call losing 80 or 90,000 people successful, he said at the Lincoln Memorial event, per CNN. But it's one of the reasons we're not at the high end of that plane as opposed to the low end of the plane. Asked directly about the change to his death toll estimate, he said, I used to say 65,000 and now I'm saying 80 or 90 and it goes up and it goes up rapidly. The event, which featured questions submitted by viewers across the country, per Deadline, was called America Together: Returning To Work, and indeed, Trump said that though the virus has claimed more lives than he initially expected, parks and beaches as well as some businesses should start opening back up and schools should return to in-person classes by the fall. Earlier Sunday, White House coronavirus task force official Dr. Deborah Birx said on Fox News Sunday, Our projections have always been between 100-240,000 American lives lost and that's with full mitigation and us learning from each other of how to social distance. At the town hall, Trump said that the actions taken by his administration prevented a far higher toll: I'll tell you one thing. We did the right thing and I really believe we saved a million and a half lives, he said, per the AP.

(Nov 25, 2019 2:12 AM) After a cargo ship carrying almost 15,000 sheep overturned off the coast of Romania on Sunday, authorities said all 22 crew members had been rescued--but only 32 sheep. The Queen Hind, which was bound for Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, with a cargo of around 14,600 live sheep, overturned soon after leaving the Romanian port of Constanta, the BBC reports. Authorities say they plan to right the ship and bring it back to port--and they hope the sheep in the ship's hold have survived. A few sheep were rescued from the water, although experts say that with their long fleece, survivors would have been unable to swim for long. It's not clear why the ship overturned, but there have been allegations that it was overloaded. Mary Pana, president of Romania's main livestock breeder association, called for an investigation, AFP reports. If we cannot protect livestock during long-distance transports, we should outright ban them, she said. Keith Belk from the animal science department at Colorado State University tells the New York Times that such disasters are rare and the international livestock shipping industry has improved standards after some well-publicized incidents. I know that despite there not being any international standard that I'm aware of, there's been significant emphasis placed on how the animals are handled in the shipping systems, he says. (Australia improved standards after a whistleblower released disturbing footage from a sheep-laden ship.)

(Dec 15, 2018 7:30 AM) Paris police say 85 people have been detained in Paris on the fifth straight weekend of protests by the yellow vests movement, where thousands of people converged in the French capital. Police say of those detained, 46 people have been arrested. No details have been given about why they were taken into custody, the AP reports. Limited scuffles broke out between protesters and police on the sidelines of largely peaceful demonstrations near the city's Champs-Elysees boulevard, with riot police firing small amounts of tear gas to disperse groups of protesters heading down the side streets off the main avenue. About 8,000 police and 14 armored vehicles were deployed in Paris for the demonstration after similar protests in recent weekends turned violent, with protesters smashing and looting stores and setting up burning barricades in the streets. There was an especially strong police presence outside the central Saint-Lazare train station, where police in riot gear checked bags. More than 20 police vans and a water cannon truck idled nearby. President Emanuel Macron on Friday called for calm during the demonstrations. Saturday marks the fifth straight weekend of demonstrations by the yellow vest movement, which takes its name from the fluorescent safety vests French motorists carry in their vehicles. It emerged mid-November as a protest against fuel tax increases and morphed into an expression of rage against the government. (Egypt has banned yellow safety vests, aka gilets jaunes, due to what's going on in France.)

(Apr 29, 2019 1:16 PM CDT) New Zealand has about 9,000 people behind bars and another 9,000 staff members manning the prisons, and the country's department of corrections was fearful yet another hot summer could fuel an increase in violence between the two groups. Its solution? A whole lot of slushie machines. The Guardian reports it's a purchase that's gotten a chilly reaction from some but is being fiercely defended but the DOC. Summer runs from December through February there, and over 2017-2018, the heat was record-breaking. Fearing a repeat the following summer, 193 machines were purchased for staff use only ahead of December 2018, at a cost of roughly $670,000. As the Australian Associated Press puts it, the DOC thought having slushies on-hand in nine prisons could reduce staff discomfort and tension that could lead to inmate violence. And the DOC says the machines worked, with no significant problems occurring during the steamy summer, even with staff wearing 13-pound stab-proof vests amid indoor temps that hit 85 degrees. By way of defense, one DOC official cited research showing slushie machines are up to three times more effective at lowering core body temps in heat compared to drinking water. (A lawsuit alleged stomach-churning conditions at a California prison.)

(Sep 22, 2020 10:58 AM CDT) The unwanted milestone everyone knew was coming has arrived: The US has reached 200,000 confirmed deaths from the coronavirus, according to the Johns Hopkins tracker. Don't expect the figure to stop growing anytime soon: Axios notes that the US is averaging about 830 deaths a day amid predictions of a winter surge in cases. The idea of 200,000 deaths is really very sobering, and in some respects, stunning, Dr. Anthony Fauci tells CNN. We do have within our capability, even before we get a vaccine, which we will get reasonably soon to slow transmission rates, he says.

(May 20, 2019 9:50 AM CDT) Ford is cutting about 7,000 white-collar jobs, which would make up 10% of its global workforce. The company said the plan will save about $600 million per year by eliminating bureaucracy and increasing the number of workers reporting to each manager, per the AP. In the US, about 2,300 jobs will be cut through buyouts and layoffs. About 1,500 already have happened, and about 500 workers will be let go this week. In a memo to employees Monday, CEO Jim Hackett said this wave of a companywide restructuring will start on Tuesday, with the majority of cuts being finished by May 24.

(Jun 22, 2018 6:24 AM CDT) Amid widespread confusion over President Trump's executive order on border separations, a senior administration official says many of the children taken from their families have already been reunited with their parents. The official, speaking under condition of anonymity, tells the AP that around 500 of more than 2,300 children separated from their families under the zero tolerance border policy have been returned to their parents since May, some of them within days of being taken. It's not clear how many are still in detention with their families. Texas attorney Jodi Goodwin, however, tells the Washington Post that she has tried to locate dozens of separated children on behalf of their mothers and had no success. With children sent to foster homes and shelters across the country, it's a total labyrinth, Goodwin says. Natalia Cornelio with the Texas Civil Rights Project legal aid group says they are working with 300 parents but have only been able to track down two children. Either the government wasn't thinking at all about how they were going to put these families back together, or they decided they just didn't care, she tells the Post. The AP's source says ICE and HHS are working to set up a centralized reunification process in Texas, though some attorneys and officials have admitted, chillingly, that permanent separation is a possibility in some cases. The Pentagon, meanwhile, said Thursday that it is preparing to shelter up to 20,000 unaccompanied alien children on four military bases in Texas and Arkansas, the New York Times reports. (Two baby boys taken from their parents ended up in Michigan.)

(Sep 25, 2018 12:47 PM CDT) It's a pretty extreme case of a disgruntled employee: The Times of India reports 37-year-old Dhan Singh Bisht was arrested last week after allegedly stealing $96,000 from his employer after being miffed about how a previous heroic gesture was rewarded. That employer, Reema Polychem Private Limited in Azadpur, tasked Bisht with occasionally collecting money from clients; while once transporting roughly $110,000, robbers descended on him. Though the Hindu reports his neck was injured and he needed 14 stitches, he managed to fend them off--and rather than receive a cash reward as he had expected, his employer gave him only a T-shirt as thanks, per the Times. New Delhi police allege Bisht then hatched a plan to make off with the next money pick-up his employer asked him to make and say he engaged friend Yakub Hasan to assist him. In late August, Bisht was sent to retrieve $96,000, and police say he contacted Hasan, who picked him up and drove him to a specified location in exchange for about $5,500, the majority of which Hasan allegedly deposited into his bank account. Bisht reportedly turned off his phone and hid out for several days, then rented a home in Burari, north of Delhi, and lavishly decked it out, per the Hindu. A Sept. 21 tip led police to Hasan, and Bisht was subsequently arrested as well.

(Oct 2, 2018 2:40 AM CDT) A judge has ordered the state of Utah to pay more than $475,000 in legal fees after it lost a court fight over a law that banned serving alcohol during the racy, foul-mouthed superhero film Deadpool. US District Judge David Nuffer handed down a strongly worded decision denying state arguments that the price was too high, the AP reports. The political judgment of the state that it will enact a statute contrary to existing law and risk payment of legal fees is a legitimate choice, but it has consequences, he wrote. Lawmakers and the governor in the conservative state had backed a law that's largely aimed at strip clubs, but also prohibited serving booze during films with simulated sex or full-frontal nudity.

(Jul 11, 2019 1:56 AM CDT) After a truck lost part of its load on Interstate 285 in Georgia Tuesday, numerous citizens stopped their vehicles to help clean up the spillage. But it wasn't exactly a display of public-spiritedness--they were grabbing cash that had fallen out of an armored truck. In a Facebook post, the Dunwoody Police Department said multiple 911 callers told them at around 8pm that more than 15 vehicles had stopped and people were frantically taking the money, Fox reports. Officers and the armored truck crew managed to gather a few hundred dollars out of the estimated $175,000 that fell out of the truck after a side door opened, police said, adding: While we certainly understand the temptation, it's still theft and the money should be returned. Police say some people were seen with armloads of cash after the spill around 17 miles from Atlanta. They say more than $4,000 has already been returned, and, under a no harm, no foul policy, they don't plan on prosecuting anybody who returns the money. I just saw a cloud full of what looked like leaves. No, it was money, Uber Eats driver Randrell Lewis tells the New York Times. I am not going to lie. The first thing I did was I pulled over and started picking up some money. Everybody started pulling over and it was crazy. Police say Lewis returned $2,094 on Wednesday. I just wanted to really make sure I am not going to get in trouble for this, the 26-year-old says. (There were two crashes after an armored car lost more than $500,000 on a New Jersey highway in December.)

(Jun 5, 2018 6:04 AM CDT) A former Defense Intelligence Agency case officer who allegedly sought out a new career as a double agent working for Beijing didn't catch his flight from Seattle to China on Saturday. Ron Rockwell Hansen, 58, was arrested by the FBI as he attempted to leave the country, reports Reuters. Hansen--a Utah native who is fluent in Mandarin and Russian--is charged with selling US secrets to China for at least $800,000, AFP reports. According to an indictment, Hansen, who served in signals intelligence in the US Army, was based in Beijing for his work as a case officer handling US agents, but he failed to report meetings with Chinese intelligence agents and sought information on American military operations to sell to his Chinese contacts. The indictment states that Hansen was in deep financial trouble, with hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt, between 2013 and 2016, The 15 charges against Hansen include acting as an unregistered foreign agent for China and attempting to gather or deliver national defense information to aid a foreign government, the BBC reports. He faces a maximum sentence of life in prison if convicted. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said she didn't have any information on the case. But certainly of late there have been some issues between China and the United States, she said, per Reuters. We think China and the US are two major countries and both sides should do more things that strengthen cooperation and mutual trust. (Another American accused of spying for China was lured back to the US with a fake job.)

(Jul 13, 2020 8:17 AM CDT) The last time a wild bison roamed what it is now the United Kingdom, the world was a much a different place--and 6,000 years younger. But an ambitious new program aims to reintroduce the animal to a forest near Canterbury in Kent, reports the Guardian. One male and three females will be brought to the forest from the Netherlands or Poland, both of which have had success with similar programs, per CNN. Typically, a female has one calf per year, and the hope is that the small herd will gradually increase in size. These bison will be European bison, the closest existing relative to the ancient steppe bison that disappeared thousands of years ago. Using missing keystone species like bison to restore natural processes to habitats is the key to creating bio-abundance in our landscape, says the director of the Kent Wildlife Trust, one of two conservation charities behind the $1.4 million project, per USA Today. The bison take out trees by eating bark or rubbing against them to remove fur, but in this case, the modest destruction of trees is welcomed. The downed trees provide a home for insects, which draw birds and another animals, and the cleared area allows plants to flourish. All this will take place in a forest managed by wildlife officials, though the public will be allowed to visit eventually.

(Feb 21, 2018 10:23 AM) Veal liver costs considerably more than fruit ... but trying to pass it off as fruit cost a German man considerably more than it would have to just pay full price for the meat. The 58-year-old businessman, who makes nearly $30,000 a month, scanned $58 worth of veal liver at the self-service checkout, but said it was fruit. He even had it concealed in a fruit bag, the Independent reports. He was caught and had been held in jail since December until Munich's district court convicted him of theft, ABC Online reports. The man, who had previous convictions for theft and tax evasion and admitted to pulling the same self-service grocery trick three other times, was fined $256,000. An Australian expert says studies show customers don't feel as bad about stealing when they're dealing with a machine rather than a human cashier. But a police detective says it is, in fact, still stealing. Even if it is the avocado and you think you're saving $2, it's still shoplifting, he says. It's still stealing, it's still a crime and if we catch you, or you get caught, you will be charged. (The internet was recently grossed out by photos of raw meat being carted into a market.)

(Aug 17, 2018 10:10 AM CDT) There had already been rumblings of Google employees who'd complained or defected from the company altogether to avoid having to work on a censorship-friendly search app reportedly being made for China. Now about 1,400 employees who are still there have banded together in a more cohesive way, penning a letter that sources say is making the rounds internally and pushes back on the work they've been asked to do. Currently we do not have the information required to make ethically informed decisions about our work, our projects, and our employment, the Googlers say in the letter, which appears in the New York Times, adding that the fact that Google is willing to play ball with China at all on this brings up urgent moral and ethical issues. Some employees even suspect they may have been recruited to work on elements of the content-restricting project deemed Dragonfly without realizing what they were working on. We urgently need more transparency, a seat at the table, and a commitment to clear and open processes: Google employees need to know what we're building, the letter reads, adding that eyebrow-raising projects should get a full, published ethical analysis and that rank and file employees and outside reps should be involved in reviewing products for transparency. Meanwhile, per a source said to have attended an employee town hall Thursday, CEO Sundar Pichai said the company will definitely be transparent as they get closer to a search app in China, which he added they were not close to launching, the Financial Times reports, via AFP.

(Aug 16, 2018 5:30 PM CDT) Omarosa Manigault Newman on Thursday released another secret audio recording that she says proves President Trump wanted to silence her after firing her from the White House. In the recording played on MSNBC, Trump's daughter-in-law Lara Trump offers Manigault Newman a job earning $15,000 a month, the AP reports. The job wouldn't require her to report to any particular office or have a specific set of duties, other than to speak positively on Trump's behalf as part of his re-election campaign. Lara Trump, married to Eric Trump, can be heard on the tape noting a New York Times report that suggested Manigault Newman had inside information that could be damaging to Trump.

(Mar 26, 2019 1:49 AM CDT) A defiant Michael Avenatti was freed on $300,000 bond and promised to keep fighting that good fight Monday night after his arrest on charges including extortion and wire fraud. Stormy Daniels' former lawyer, who did not enter a plea during an appearance in federal court in New York, was also required to surrender his US and Italian passports, the BBC reports. I have fought against the powerful, powerful people, and powerful corporations. I will never stop fighting that good fight, Avenatti told reporters outside the court. I am highly confident that when all of the evidence is laid bare ... I will be fully exonerated and justice will be done. Prosecutors say Avenatti and another lawyer tried to extort millions from Nike by threatening to reveal damaging allegations. The lawyers allegedly told Nike that the matter could be settled if the company paid them $1.5 million and hired them for another $15 million to $25 million to conduct an internal investigation --or simply paid them $22.5 million to resolve any claims, the Washington Post reports. Sources tell the Post that the other attorney is celebrity lawyer Mark Geragos. A suit and tie doesn't mask the fact that, at its core, this was an old-fashioned shakedown, said US Attorney Geoffrey Berman. Daniels, who parted ways with Avenatti earlier this month, said she was saddened but not shocked by the charges, Business Insider reports. In an unrelated case in California, Avenatti is accused of embezzling a client's money to pay expenses for his coffee business.

(Sep 20, 2018 4:00 PM CDT) A Colorado meatpacker is recalling more than 132,000 pounds of ground beef after a suspected E. coli outbreak killed one person and sickened 17, officials said. The US Department of Agriculture said Wednesday the beef was produced and packaged at Cargill Meat Solutions in Fort Morgan on June 21 and shipped to retailers nationwide. The products include 3-, 10- and 20-pound packages of ground beef under the Our Certified, Excel, Sterling Silver, Certified, and Fire River Farms brands with July 11 use or freeze by dates. Regulators warned that people should also check for the products in their freezers. They advise throwing the products away or returning them to the location of purchase, the AP reports.

(Jan 3, 2020 11:43 AM) A woman claiming to be a psychic stole more than $70,000 from a client by telling the woman her 10-year-old daughter was possessed by a demon and she needed the money to banish the spirit, police in Massachusetts said. Tracy (or Tracey) Milanovich, 37, of Somerset, is charged with obtaining property by trick, along with larceny and witness intimidation, Somerset police said in a statement Thursday. Police started investigating Dec. 17 when the alleged victim reported she was tricked by Milanovich into handing over large sums of cash, along with household items such as towels and bedding, to battle the demon, per the AP. The allegations date to Nov. 15, when the woman first went to Milanovich's business, Tracy's Psychic Palm Reader, for a tarot card reading, police said in their report.

(Feb 11, 2020 6:08 PM) This has got to be up there on the list of a moving company's worst nightmares: Movers dropped and destroyed a grand piano worth an estimated $194,000. The piano, a handmade Fazioli, belonged to Canadian virtuoso Angela Hewitt, whom CNN calls one of the world's leading classical pianists. A heartbroken Hewitt announced the loss Sunday on Facebook, saying she'd been too shocked in the immediate aftermath of the incident 10 days prior to reveal what had happened. At the end of my most recent CD recording sessions (Beethoven Variations in Berlin), when I was so happy with the results and feeling elated, the piano movers came into the control room (where I was finishing up with my producer) to say they had dropped my precious Fazioli concert grand piano. My very own that I have used for all of my CD recordings done in Europe since 2003 (and of course for many concerts), she wrote. Paolo Fazioli, the owner of Fazioli Pianos, declared the F278--the only one of that model in the world with four pedals--unsalvageable. The iron frame is broken, as well as much else in the structure and action (not to mention the lid and other parts of the case), Hewitt wrote. It's kaputt. The movers of course were mortified. In 35 years of doing their job, this had never happened before. At least nobody was hurt. The Guardian notes the piano weighed 1,300 pounds. Hewitt says that after the insurance saga, she will ultimately choose a new Fazioli, but will still mourn the loss of her old one. I adored this piano. It was my best friend, best companion. I loved how it felt when I was recording--giving me the possibility to do anything I wanted. As an expert explains to the Guardian, Every single piano is different and you grow with them and they change as they age and you develop together. For a pianist at that level a piano becomes an extension of your body and that's why she dragged it around for her recordings.

(Jan 18, 2019 7:55 AM) Two years ago, a central California teen began what NPR calls a Sisyphean task --hauling hundreds of pounds of golf balls off the ocean floor, only to have them reenter the sea as golfers from five nearby golf courses (including Pebble Beach) hit them right back in. Alex Weber was just 16 when she first discovered the shocking sight while free diving. You couldn't see the sand, she says, noting the seafloor was completely white from the sheer number of balls. And thus began Weber's self-appointed chore of removing the balls from the water--what Golf.com calls akin to an Easter egg hunt --with the help of her dad, a friend, and even a scientist that got wind of her efforts. Their total haul hit the 50,000-ball mark in September, gathered in grueling, cold conditions with sharks nearby and an aerial barrage of new balls flying their way during the collection process. What makes the golf ball-filled waters more than just a disturbing visual is the fact that not only do the balls contain potentially harmful zinc compounds, they're also coated with a thin polymer layer that's eroded over time by the rough waters. As the balls degrade, they turn into microplastics that marine creatures can ingest. Weber's website documents the stages of golf ball degradation, from those fresh off the golf course to Stage Five, when they've lost their paint and dimples and their cores are exposed. Weber, now 18, says she wishes the balls would float, so everyone could see the extent of the pollution. People would be outraged, she told Vice last summer, adding she hopes laws are soon passed holding golf clubs responsible for cleanup. (Could there be golf balls in your ... hash browns?)

(Sep 20, 2018 7:29 PM CDT) Upon further review, a New Jersey man will get his full $82,000 payout on a disputed $110 sports bet, the AP reports. And several other gamblers who made similar bets at wildly inflated odds will also be paid in full, FanDuel said Thursday. The online sports betting company said it will pay Anthony Prince of Newark the full 750-1 payout he was promised when the company's automated system mistakenly generated long odds on the final moments of the Denver Broncos-Oakland Raiders game on Sunday. The company initially refused to pay the bet placed at its sports book at the Meadowlands Racetrack, saying it isn't obligated to pay for obvious errors. But FanDuel reversed field after consulting with state gambling regulators.

(Dec 2, 2020 5:54 PM) The suspect in a string of at least 10 random assaults in Massachusetts now has a price on his head. Authorities in Waltham, about 20 miles outside of Boston, offered a $5,000 reward Tuesday for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the man responsible for the recent attacks, NBC News reports. The suspect, described as a Black male between 5-foot-6 and 5-foot-10 with a medium build, was lying in wait for his victims, said Police Chief Keith MacPherson. Lead detective Sgt. Steve McCarthy said the attacks have created a fear factor in our city right now, adding, I'd be lying to you if I said I'm not losing sleep at night, you know, coming into work. On Facebook, the city advised residents to remain aware of their surroundings and said police have stepped up patrols. The attacks began Nov. 10, with the first five happening at an apartment complex and another five in downtown Waltham. The assailant hasn't used a gun or knife, but struck his victims with a blunt object, according to reports. The motive is somewhat in question but it appears to be a thrill of the assault, or someone who's very violent and enjoys seeing someone hurt by this, MacPherson said, per the Boston Globe. There's never been a robbery. It's always been just an assault and the assailant takes off. One victim said the attack happened very quickly and left him with a broken nose and a cracked head: I was not prepared for this, he said. Mayor Jeannette McCarthy asked residents to avoid walking outside at night, per Patch. Use the buddy system if you have to go out, she added.

(Mar 13, 2019 8:42 AM CDT) Everybody likes being wished a happy birthday. Just perhaps not by over 15,000 people from around the world. That's exactly what's happened to Chris Ferry from New Jersey, after a birthday prank by his two sons went viral. Ferry, 61, is soon to be 62, and in continuing a tradition of family humor, his sons bought him a billboard as a birthday gift, reports CNN. Wish my dad a happy birthday, reads the sign, and it includes a photo of Ferry and his cell number. The billboard went up on March 6th, although Ferry's actual birthday isn't until the 16th. After receiving his first birthday text from a random stranger and hearing about the billboard, Ferry drove to it and took a selfie. The picture went viral. Since then he's been inundated by messages and calls. People around the world have clogged his phone with texts and calls, writes the BBC. Some have opted to sing Happy Birthday on the line, while others have regaled Ferry with personal stories about their own fathers. We thought it was going to be a local joke, says son Chris Jr. I guess when we put it on social media, that's when it really started going crazy. Ferry has been contacted by people from the Philippines, Kenya, Luxembourg, Ireland, Guatemala, Nepal, and Australia. Even though the prank has rendered his phone almost useless, Ferry is enjoying the gesture, reports Fox News. He's trying to answer as many texts as he can, he's answering phone calls, explains Chris Jr. He's actually really getting a kick out of this.

(Apr 16, 2018 1:54 PM CDT) It may be a fresh week for Scott Pruitt, but it's not one void of uncomfortable headlines. ABC News reports a government watchdog has determined the EPA violated section 710 of the Financial Services and General Government Appropriations Act when it spent $43,000 on a secure phone booth for Pruitt's office. The Government Accountability Office explains that because the cost was in excess of $5,000, the EPA was required to alert Congress. Presidential appointees may make improvements to their offices up to that limit without telling Congress, and the GAO struck down the EPA's argument, reports the Washington Post: that the nearly $25,000 spent on the booth and the $18,000 in installation costs shouldn't be classified as redecoration and therefore shouldn't be beholden to that limit. Because EPA did not comply with the notification requirement, the funds were not legally available at the time EPA incurred the obligation, the GAO found and reported in a letter to the Senate Democrats who had asked for the spending review, per the AP. The GAO says the EPA is legally required to report its violation to Congress and to President Trump, and a rep for the agency says it will get Congress the necessary information this week. The GAO did not pass any judgment on whether the booth was a justified expense; EPA's failure to make the necessary notification is the only subject of this opinion, per the letter.

(Feb 15, 2020 6:00 AM) A controversial call during a promotion at a college basketball game this week has been remedied. It all started Wednesday evening during a matchup between the University of Northern Iowa and Illinois State University, when Northern Iowa student Dalton Hinsch pulled off a tough feat during a timeout promotion: He sank a layup, free throw, 3-pointer, and half-court shot during a set time period, meaning he'd won $10,000. A video from UNI's McLeod Center shows he successfully hurled the final half-court shot right as the announcer finished his countdown, causing the crowd to go wild. Then, per the Des Moines Register, those cheers turned to boos as it was announced that Hinsch hadn't finished the task in time. Last night @DaltonHinsch put in an incredible performance completing the $10,000 shot in 27 seconds, the UNI athletics department tweeted Thursday. Unfortunately the insurance rules are it must be completed in 24 seconds with no rebound help. The tweet noted Hinsch would get $2,000 instead and a trip to the Arch Madness tournament. That decision has since been reversed by UNI's athletics director, David Harris, who weighed in after public criticism and acknowledgment that the announcer's countdown had been confusing, per the Register. We felt [it] was the right thing to do, he says. Hinsch, who was gracious even after the $2,000 win, is now even more thrilled. Thank you to UNI and CB Seeds for the prize, Hinsch says in a UNI release. I understood the rules prior to the contest, and am truly grateful for UNI and CB Seeds going above and beyond and awarding me the $10,000.

(Sep 14, 2020 8:53 AM CDT) A lock of Abraham Lincoln's hair along with a blood-stained telegram about his 1865 assassination have been sold at auction for more than $81,000, reports the AP. No information about the buyer was disclosed. The roughly 2-inch long lock of hair was removed during Lincoln's postmortem examination after he was fatally shot at Ford's Theatre in Washington by John Wilkes Booth. It was originally presented to Dr. Lyman Beecher Todd, a Kentucky postmaster and a cousin of Mary Todd Lincoln, the 16th president's widow, according to RR Auction of Boston. Dr. Todd was present when Lincoln's body was examined. The hair is mounted on an official War Department telegram sent to Dr. Todd by George Kinnear, his assistant in the post office in Lexington, Ky.

(Nov 5, 2019 2:05 AM) Fired CEO Steve Easterbrook is getting a golden handshake from the Golden Arches. The McDonald's CEO will receive around $670,000 from the company, which is half his annual salary. But according to a separation agreement filed Monday, Easterbrook will forfeit almost $22 million in unvested stock options, USA Today reports. The 52-year-old, who was fired for having a consensual relationship with an employee, received a total of $15.9 million from the company last year including salary, stock options, and incentive payments. His replacement, Chris Kempczinski, will have an annual base salary of $1.25 million with a bonus of up to 170% of salary, McDonald's says. The severance agreement bars Easterbrook from working for competing fast food chains or companies including Starbucks for two years. The company's top human resources executive is also leaving, the AP reports. McDonald's said Monday that Chief People Officer David Fairhurst has left the company effective immediately. The company said Fairhurst's departure was unrelated to Easterbrook's exit, although marketing exec Jordan Cohen suspects otherwise. These types of scandals don't come out of nowhere so clearly there was a breakdown there, he tells the Guardian. Someone was aware of the situation and did not act to address it, didn't surface it to the board, or was acting to protect the CEO and not the interests of the company.

(Jul 25, 2018 12:18 PM CDT) An 18-year-old Oregon student who was forced out of class for refusing to cover up his pro-Trump T-shirt won't end up getting the last word in the matter--which is the outcome he wanted. The last word will go to the principal of Liberty High School in Hillsboro, who agreed to issue a letter of apology as part of a settlement in the case. Addison Barnes sued the school, Principal Greg Timmons, and the Hillsboro School District, accusing them of violating his First Amendment rights. KOIN reports that Barnes initially covered up the Donald J. Trump Border Wall Construction Co.'' he wore to school in January, but then decided to reverse course. He was then told to cover it again or go home, and he chose the latter option, which the school recorded as a suspension. The Oregonian reports a federal judge issued a temporary restraining order two months ago that prevented the school from banning the shirt for the remainder of the school year, with the judge saying the censorship wasn't legally justified. The school had argued the shirt could fuel a hostile learning environment. The settlement, announced Tuesday, will also see the district pay $25,000 to cover Barnes' legal fees. Willamette Week has a statement from Barnes, who has since graduated from the school: Everyone knows that if a student wears an anti-Trump shirt to school, the teachers won't think twice about it. But when I wore a pro-Trump shirt, I got suspended. That's not right.

(Feb 12, 2020 9:20 AM) More than 2,400 fetal remains found in the possession of a late abortion doctor now have a final resting place. All remains will be buried Wednesday in a single grave at Southlawn Cemetery in South Bend, Ind., in compliance with a state law requiring fetal remains be buried or cremated after an abortion, per Fox News. Dr. Ulrich Klopfer was based in South Bend, though most remains were found at his home in Crete, Ill., a mile from the Indiana state line, following his death in September at age 79. It's unclear if he was a hoarder or simply sought to avoid disposal costs. Indiana Attorney General Curtis Hill will preside over the burial before providing an update on the probe into Klopfer. Often the only abortion doctor serving South Bend, Gary, and Fort Wayne, he performed tens of thousands of abortions over four decades before his license was suspended in 2016. Among other issues, Klopfer was accused of performing an abortion on a 10-year-old rape victim without notifying law enforcement. He claimed conservative state officials collaborated to shutter his business with anti-abortion groups. Upon his death, relatives found 2,246 sets of remains piled in his garage. Remains from another 165 fetuses were found in the trunk of a car at a business where Klopfer stored vehicles. All came from abortions performed from 2000 to 2003, per WXIN. I'm so grateful that, finally, the bodies of these little boys and girls will be treated with the dignity they deserved, says Right to Life's Cathie Humbarger. Hill's defense of state laws restricting abortion is at the center of a reelection campaign at risk over allegations that he groped four women at a bar in 2018, though being in the spotlight during the burial could help shore up support among social conservatives, per ABC News.

(Nov 9, 2018 12:54 PM) Authorities have issued an unhealthy air quality alert for parts of the San Francisco Bay Area as smoke from a massive wildfire drifts south, polluting the air. Officials say thousands of structures in the town of Paradise, 180 miles northeast of San Francisco, were destroyed by the blaze that has charred 110 square miles, the AP reports. At least 40,000 people have been displaced. The air in San Francisco Friday is hazy and the smell of smoke is overwhelming, prompting officials to declare air quality unhealthy. They're advising older people and children to move physical activities indoors, and all people are encouraged to limit their outdoor activities. A fire official says the Northern California wildfire has put 15,000 homes and 2,000 commercial buildings in imminent danger of burning.

(Sep 20, 2018 1:10 PM CDT) A French bus driver who slapped a 12-year-old boy who ran out into the road faces disciplinary action--but more than 300,000 people so far have signed a petition supporting the driver. (See the petition here; link is in French.) After the driver was forced to brake hard to avoid hitting the boy during the Sept. 13 incident, the driver yelled at him to pay attention; the boy then yelled back, Shut up, go on, move on, the BBC reports. Video of what happened next (the BBC link has it) has gone viral after initially being shared on Snapchat: The driver exits the bus and slaps the boy across the face. The boy's mother filed a complaint against the driver. But the petition insists he not be fired, noting the boy forced him to sharply hit the brakes and rough up customers inside the bus, per euronews. The Paris transport authority, RATP, has condemned the driver's actions and launched disciplinary procedures against him; the agency says the driver, himself a father of two teens, has expressed regret for reacting emotionally. But many on social media have pointed to the boy's disrespect and bad behavior in their support of the driver, and the local mayor notes that children often run into the street in the area where the incident occurred, sometimes putting themselves in danger. The petition says the driver initially chided the boy as any parent would have done, CNN reports. But the mayor adds that the slap was neither proportionate nor appropriate. It's a child. And France's transport minister insists that it's not normal to slap a youngster.

(Jun 17, 2020 12:33 AM CDT) Nearly two months after she went missing, the US Army is offering a reward for information leading to soldier Vanessa Guillen. The 20-year-old was last seen April 22 in the parking lot of her military unit's headquarters in Fort Hood, Texas. Earlier this week, the Army announced a $25,000 reward, CBS News reports, and on Tuesday, the League of United Latin American Citizens announced an additional $25,000 reward. A Houston rapper is also adding $5,000 to the pot, KVUE reports. Guillen's mother has said Vanessa told her she had been sexually harassed by a sergeant and that she did not feel safe on the base. This is on a federal government base. A military base. ... More protections and safeguards than anywhere else, an attorney for the family says. You talk about all these gate checks and all these security checks ... yet someone goes missing? (More on the disappearance here.)

(Jun 20, 2019 7:49 AM CDT) Someone just paid six figures for a corroded gun that almost certainly doesn't shoot. But then, the point of having the most famous weapon in the history of art isn't to use it--as Vincent Van Gogh allegedly did, fatally. The 7mm Lefaucheux revolver sold at a Wednesday auction in Paris for a whopping $183,000, a figure nearly three times the estimate, reports CNN. Auction house AuctionArt couldn't confirm the weapon's provenance, but cited various evidence indicating it must be Van Gogh's suicide gun. A farmer reportedly found it in 1965 in the field in the French village of Auvers-sur-Oise where Van Gogh is said to have shot himself in the stomach on July 27, 1890. He died two days later. AuctionArt adds its caliber is the same as the bullet retrieved from the artist's body and scientific studies demonstrate that the gun had stayed in the ground since the 1890s. The Art Newspaper reports it was not deeply buried but relatively close to the surface, as one would expect of a gun that had been simply dropped. Once discovered, it was given to owners of a village inn, who left it to family members. It was exhibited at the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam in 2016, helping to raise its historical value. However, the Van Gogh Institute condemned the sale and the commercialization of a tragedy which deserves more respect, claiming nothing suggests that the remains [of the revolver] are formally linked with the death of Van Gogh, per AFP. The winning telephone bid came from an unidentified private collector.

(Mar 14, 2018 9:30 AM CDT) A HUD spokesman said Secretary Ben Carson and his wife, Candy, had zero awareness about an eyebrow-raising $31,000 order for a dining room set that came to light last month, and Carson even said he'd try to cancel the purchase. But thanks to a FOIA request, CNN now has its hands on an email suggesting not only did the Carsons know about the furniture--they're the ones who chose it. The August email from someone named as a career administration staffer to Carson's assistant features the subject line Secretary's dining room set needed, with text referring to printouts of the furniture the Secretary and Mrs. Carson picked out. HUD reps had originally pushed back by saying career staffers at the department had placed the order. Mrs. Carson and the secretary had no awareness that the table was being purchased, HUD spokesman Raffi Williams said. Carson's statement at the time--and Bible quote--said he'd briefly looked at catalogs for dining furniture (as did Candy Carson, to make sure the correct colors were selected) and was shocked by the cost of the furniture. He added he was told he had to use $25,000 allotted in the budget or lose it, and that he was surprised as anyone when the total came to $31,000. Williams' only remarks to CNN on the new revelations: When presented with options by professional staff, Mrs. Carson participated in the selection of specific styles. Meanwhile, the soundproof phone booth EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt had put into his office last fall is once again in the spotlight. Although the booth drew criticism for its reported $25,000 price tag, the Washington Post now tacks on another $18,000 for prep work--meaning it really cost $43,000. An EPA rep simply tells the Post: This is old news.

(Nov 6, 2018 9:45 AM) More than 200 mass graves containing between 6,000 and 12,000 bodies have been found in Iraq from the time of the Islamic State group's three-year reign, UN investigators said Tuesday. The 202 graves verified by investigators dot northern Iraq and are a legacy of (ISIS') terror, according to a joint report by the UN mission to Iraq and the UN office for human rights. Findings from the gravesites can be used as evidence of the group's crimes, they said. The graves date from 2014 to 2017, when the militant group ruled some of Iraq's largest cities and towns. As the militants swept through Iraq and neighboring Syria, they killed captured members of the security forces en masse, expelled or killed minorities, and enslaved women from the Yazidi sect. The UN says the widespread violations could amount to genocide, reports the AP.

(Dec 5, 2019 8:15 AM) Customer service hotlines exist in part so that customers can air grievances, and one elderly man in Japan apparently took advantage of that. CNN reports 71-year-old Akitoshi Okamoto was arrested Nov. 26 on suspicion of fraudulent obstruction of business after allegedly making 24,000 phone calls over a two-and-a-half-year period to a toll-free number to KDDI, a telecommunications company he claims violated its service contract with him. KDDI says it started getting the calls from Okamoto in May 2017. By October of this year, the company had enough and put in a damage report with police, saying Okamoto's calls seriously interfered with its business, keeping operators from taking care of other job duties and customers. According to Metropolitan Police in Tokyo, Okamoto would call KDDI and either harangue and insult whomever took his call, insist that someone from customer service pay him a personal visit, or simply call and then hang up, per the BBC. Newsweek reports the company didn't want to get the police involved, but that the tipping point came when Okamoto called KDDI 411 times in one week in October. Per Japanese media, Okamoto is claiming he's the victim, not KDDI; his reported beef is that his phone can't pick up radio broadcasts. The AFP notes that as Japan's older population grows, there's been an uptick in social problems involving the elderly, including car accidents and an increase in violence on public transportation.

(Sep 19, 2019 6:02 PM CDT) A Delta Air Lines flight landed safely Wednesday after plunging almost 30,000 feet in less than 8 minutes while over the west coast of Florida. The plane had taken off from Atlanta and was on its way to Fort Lauderdale when the Boeing 767-300 went into what a spokesman called a rapid, controlled descent, USA Today reports. No one was injured. Flight attendants told passengers to stay calm, but then, one told NBC: Out of nowhere, I had four oxygen masks drop down into my lap. Of course it was sort of an instant panic. The flight was diverted to Tampa and passengers were then bused to Fort Lauderdale. The aforementioned passenger said the pilot announced the plane would have to descend to a lower altitude because of cabin pressure, but the oxygen masks dropped before the plane reached the new altitude. Delta said that the problem could have been cabin pressure, and that it is investigating, as is the FAA. One passenger tweeted that he had texted family members that he loved them. When the scare was over, the passengers praised the pilot and flight attendants. The crew was awesome at keeping people calm, another passenger tweeted.

(Jun 25, 2018 10:39 AM CDT) Algeria has abandoned more than 13,000 people in the Sahara Desert over the past 14 months, including pregnant women and children, expelling them without food or water and forcing them to walk, at times at gunpoint, under blistering temperatures of up to 118 degrees. In Niger, where the majority head, the lucky ones limp across a desolate 9-mile no man's land to the border village of Assamaka. Others wander for days before a UN rescue squad can find them. Untold numbers perish; nearly all of the more than two dozen survivors interviewed by the AP told of people who simply vanished. Women were lying dead, men ... Other people got missing in the desert because they didn't know the way, said Janet Kamara, who was pregnant at the time. I lost my son. The International Organization for Migration estimates that for every migrant known to have died crossing the Mediterranean, as many as two are lost in the desert--potentially upward of 30,000 people since 2014. Algeria provides no figures for expulsions, but the number of people crossing on foot to Niger has been increasing since IOM started counting in May 2017, when 135 people were dropped, to as high as 2,888 in April 2018. In all, a total of 11,276 survived the march. At least another 2,500 were forced on a similar trek to neighboring Mali, with an unknown number succumbing along the way. The migrants describe being rounded up by the hundreds, crammed into trucks for hours, then dropped in the desert and pointed toward Niger. There were people who couldn't take it. They sat down and we left them. They were suffering too much, says a Senegalese teen. They tossed us into the desert, without our telephones, without money. The AP confirmed migrants' accounts via videos. They come by the thousands, says an IOM official in Assamaka. It's a catastrophe.

(Jun 20, 2019 12:50 PM CDT) Jason Scott has a new Flickr album, and what's contained therein is a jaw-dropping find he made at a garage sale: 2,400 never-before-seen photos of Ground Zero in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks. Based on the various perspectives taken from up high and on ground level, the BBC notes that the pictures found on a bunch of CDs at the unidentified garage sale may have been snapped by a construction worker who was helping in cleanup efforts. The CDs weren't in great condition, but Dr. Johnathan Burgess, a colleague of Scott's, commissioned a CD recovery service to help pull the images off. DIYPhotography.com adds that the quality of the photos is impressive, considering how hard it is to take low-light shots with compact cameras even today, let alone on one from nearly 20 years ago, when the technology wasn't as cutting edge. As for putting all of the photos up on Flickr, Burgess says sharing them is about doing what's right for humanity. He urges people who are moved by viewing them to consider donating to worthy causes as a tribute.

(Dec 4, 2020 9:51 AM) A cargo ship en route to Long Beach, California, from China lost almost 2,000 containers in a violent storm this week--more than the entire industry loses at sea in a typical year. The Coast Guard has warned Hawaii mariners about the approximately 1,900 lost containers, 40 of which are believed to hold dangerous cargo, the Honolulu Star-Advertiser reports. The Japanese-flagged ONE Apus was around 1,800 miles northwest of Hawaii when it encountered gale-force winds and large swells that caused the containers to become dislodged, reports Reuters. The ship abandoned its original course and is now proceeding in a westerly direction towards Japan with plans to seek a suitable port to right unstable containers, assess any damages, and determine the exact numbers of containers lost, the shipping company said in a statement, per the Loadstar. The World Shipping Council said this year that an average of 1,382 containers were lost at sea yearly over the last 12 years. The One Apus' loss in the Pacific is the biggest container loss since the MOL Comfort sank off the coast of Yemen in 2013 with 4,293 containers aboard.

(Oct 30, 2018 6:08 PM CDT) The Shinjuku Gyoen national garden in Tokyo lost more than $220,000 in revenue due to a scared employee. The attendant, a man in his early 70s, recently admitted to investigators that because he was too frightened to ask foreign visitors to pay for their tickets, he just let them in free. The man said he stopped collecting admission fees in April 2014 after a non-Japanese visitor yelled at him, he became scared that other foreign tourists would get similarly upset if he couldn't understand them because he doesn't speak any other languages. An investigation was launched in December 2016 after another employee noticed him acting oddly when a foreigner bought a ticket, the Guardian reports. The man allegedly got a co-worker with access to the garden's database to cancel the estimated 160,000 sales in order to hide the discrepancy between sales and revenue, the Independent reports. After the issue was discovered by Japan's environment ministry, which runs the park, he was docked 10% of his salary. He asked to retire early and offered up half of his $2,650 retirement bonus. (A DMV worker literally slept on the job for nearly 4 years.)

(Mar 8, 2018 6:04 PM) Records show the Interior Department spent nearly $139,000 last year for construction at the agency that was labeled on a work order as Secretary's Door, the AP reports. A spokesperson for Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke did not provide answers Thursday to questions about whether changes had been made to a door in the secretary's office.

(May 27, 2020 4:15 PM CDT) Boeing is cutting more than 12,000 jobs through layoffs and buyouts as the coronavirus pandemic seizes the travel industry. And the aircraft maker says more cuts are coming. The company, one of the nation's biggest manufacturers, said Wednesday that it will lay off 6,770 US employees this week, and another 5,520 workers are taking buyout offers to leave voluntarily in the coming weeks, the AP reports. Boeing had said it would cut 10% of a workforce that numbered about 160,000. A Boeing spokesperson said Wednesday's actions represent the largest number of job cuts, but several thousand additional jobs will be eliminated in the next few months. The layoffs are expected to be concentrated in the Seattle area, home to Boeing's commercial-airplanes business. The company said additional job cuts will be made in international locations, but it did not provide numbers. Chicago-based Boeing's defense and space division has remained relatively stable, helping offset the decline in air travel and demand for passenger jets. The COVID-19 pandemic's devastating impact on the airline industry means a deep cut in the number of commercial jets and services our customers will need over the next few years, which in turn means fewer jobs on our lines and in our offices, CEO David Calhoun said Wednesday in a memo to employees.

(Sep 26, 2019 2:13 AM CDT) When Gravity Payments bought Boise, Idaho, firm ChargeItPro three years ago, the lowest-paid employees made $24,000 a year. That soon went up to $40,000--and Gravity CEO Dan Price says it will be $70,000 by 2024. To mark the opening of a new Boise Gravity office, which the ChargeItPro employees will be transferred to, Price told the 40 workers that the minimum salary will go up to $50,000 immediately, followed by $5,000 raises in each of the next four years, the Idaho Statesman-Journal reports. The CEO raised the minimum pay for all workers at the company's Seattle headquarters to $70,000 in 2015 after reading a study that said happiness and general emotional well-being significantly increases with pay rises up until around $75,000, CNN reports. He cut his own $1 million salary to the same level to help fund the pay rises. Price says the Boise office is going to hire a significant number of call center workers, who will also receive a $70,000 salary by 2024. Our competitors outsource those jobs to India and the Philippines and other places and offer very, very low wages, in some cases $2 to $3 or $4 an hour, he tells the Statesman Journal. And that's an important job. The road has not been entirely smooth for the credit card payment processing company since the pay raises began--some higher-paid employees quit, and Price was sued by his own brother, who co-founded the company--but the CEO says the business has prospered and it has been really fantastic to see a big rise in the number of employees who have started families and bought homes. (Price defeated his brother's lawsuit and now owns the entire company.)

(Dec 30, 2020 2:08 PM) French people gathering in public to wish each other Bonne Annee can expect a visit from the gendarmerie. Authorities say 100,000 police will be deployed across France on New Year's Eve to prevent gatherings and strictly enforce the 8pm to 6am curfew, the Guardian reports. They will also target what the Guardian calls the traditional torching of vehicles, that saw a record 1,457 cars burnt across the country last New Year's Eve. Police will be breaking up any groups of more than 10 that have assembled in public and will question anybody out after curfew, reports the Local. Bars and restaurants will remain closed. With COVID cases rising rapidly, authorities have ruled out a third national lockdown, but the curfew may soon be inched up to 6pm, reports Reuters.

(Mar 10, 2018 9:10 AM) Jessica Chastain celebrated International Women's Day by donating $2,000 to a woman who was apparently in need, reports ABC News. The Molly's Game actor had engaged in an Instagram exchange with Karin Schulz, who said she was short of money for a fertility treatment. The two didn't agree on everything--Shulz is pro-life and Chastain pro-choice--but Chastain said she was moved by her follower's struggle to fund fertility treatments that insurance didn't cover, Bustle reports. I read about your journey to become a mother and it broke my heart, Chastain wrote on Instagram. Schulz, one of Chastain's 1.6 million Instagram followers, wrote back effusively: You are my sister, and together wonderful change and more awesome things will happen in this beautiful world we live in.

(Jan 31, 2019 1:19 PM) Kim Davis became the most famous county clerk in the nation a few years ago when she refused to issue marriage licenses to gay couples in Kentucky. Current Gov. Matt Bevin considers Davis, who is no longer in the job, an inspiration for what she did. In court, however, Bevin's attorneys say that Davis herself--or at least the county clerk office where she used to work--should have to pay nearly $225,000 in legal fees that resulted from the controversy, reports Kentucky.com. The attorneys don't think the state itself should have to pay the bills, and the matter is now being ironed out in court. The hefty bill is the result of a 2017 decision by a federal judge, who ruled that Kentucky taxpayers should cover the legal fees of the couples who sued the state. The thinking of the governors' attorneys goes like this: We don't think Davis did anything wrong, but because a federal judge ruled that she violated the civil rights of gay couples, either Rowan County or Davis herself should pay the $222,000 in legal fees, reports the AP. The governor's office have taken no position as to whether Ms. Davis acted unconstitutionally, says Bevin's general counsel, Steve Pitt. Governor Bevin does not believe that she has done so and continues to support Ms. Davis's actions. Davis spent five days in jail in 2015 over her refusal to issue the licenses. (In November, Davis lost her bid for another term.)

(Jan 21, 2019 11:32 AM) The most expensive Lincoln model sold thus far is on display at the North American International Auto Show in Detroit this week--and if you're not one of the dozens of people who've already nabbed one of the $110,000 luxury cars, you're out of luck. Per CNBC, the limited-edition 80th Anniversary Lincoln Continental Coach Door Edition, making headlines for its suicide doors, was sold out within 48 hours of its debut, with only 80 buyers. (The center-opening doors have that nickname because critics see the design as dangerous.) The Detroit Free Press reports on the clamor after the car was announced, with hundreds of potential purchasers flooding Lincoln dealerships with phone calls when the news broke in mid-December. One customer was one of these people who could have whatever they wanted, and he wanted to match the Lincoln with his aircraft, Robert Parker, Lincoln's marketing director, says. Parker says December was the brand's best month in two years, and that response for this vehicle came even from outside the US, including from Dubai and Shanghai. A limited-edition 2020 version is in the works, though there will be variations. Recipients of the 2019 model will start getting delivery of their sedans over the summer. (More than a dozen cars that are getting the ax.)

(Oct 18, 2018 1:21 PM CDT) A Smithfield Foods employee has been suspended and 50,000 pounds of meat have been tossed in the garbage after surveillance video appeared to show the worker urinating on the production line at the Smithfield, Va., packaging plant. The employee can be seen removing his gloves, apparently peeing while leaning up against the counter, then putting the gloves back on and going back to work, WAVY reports. The incident happened over the weekend, and on Tuesday Smithfield released a statement saying an internal investigation revealed an employee had urinated at his station but assuring customers that the facility immediately halted production, fully cleaned the processing line, and sanitized all equipment multiple times before resuming operations. The employee's fate will be decided after a company investigation is complete, the Virginian-Pilot reports. (Smithfield has been involved in other gross headlines.)

(Aug 23, 2018 6:59 PM CDT) When German drugmaker Bayer acquired agribusiness Monsanto for $66 billion in June, the deal came with more than 5,000 lawsuits centered on claims that the latter's glyphosate-based weedkillers, such as Roundup, cause cancer. As of the end of July, the number of lawsuits was about 8,000, Reuters reports. In a Thursday conference call Bayer CEO Werner Baumann said, These numbers may rise or fall over time, but our view is that the number is not indicative of the merits of the plaintiff's cases --even after a recent $289 million jury award to California groundskeeper dying of cancer allegedly connected to his use of glyphosate. Baumann said the company will appeal that decision, which he called wrong and inconsistent with the robust science-based conclusions of regulators and health authorities worldwide, according to Bloomberg. Still, since the Aug. 10 verdict in California, Bayer shares have reportedly lost more than 10%. And analysts say that the glyphosate cases could cost the company some $5 billion. Nonetheless, the herbicide is still in demand, Liam Condon of Bayer's agriculture unit tells Bloomberg, saying, Demand for glyphosate depends on the growing conditions, and not a jury decision in California. Following the verdict, however, some California cities say they will no longer use glyphosate products. The cities of Benicia and Novato are going glyphosate-free, KGO-TV reports. The same goes for Santa Rosa, according to the Press Democrat. (Traces of glyphosate have been found in breakfast cereals)

(Jan 11, 2020 4:00 PM) Looks like video games come with a built-in safety net. A teenager in Widnes, England, had a sudden seizure while gaming last week with an online friend--and that friend, 5,000 miles away in Texas, called the police, CBS News reports. I could hear him seizing and breathing really hard and it sounds like he was choking and crying, said Dia Lathora, 20, in her emergency call to UK police about 17-year-old Aidan Jackson. I'm calling from the US. I'm currently on a call with my friend, he had a seizure and he's not responding anymore. It wasn't long before police pulled up outside a home in Widnes, an industrial town of about 61,000 in Cheshire.

(Mar 14, 2018 8:17 AM CDT) Joar Ulsom of Norway won the world's most famous sled dog race Wednesday after a grueling dash across Alaska's rough terrain, but he earned tens of thousands of dollars less than last year's top musher at the struggling Iditarod. It's pretty unreal I pulled it off, Ulsom told reporters at the finish line in Nome, Alaska. After nearly 1,000 miles, Ulsom and the eight dogs on his team came off the Bering Sea ice onto Nome's main street. He slapped hands with fans who lined the streets and went under the finish line at 3am local time Wednesday. It's out of this world, he said before hugging each of his dogs, reports the AP. Ulsom's victory generated heavy media attention in Norway, which is still basking in the glory of winning the most medals at Pyeongchang.

(Apr 8, 2019 12:01 AM CDT) In 1994, there was no hope, only darkness, Rwanda's President Paul Kagame said Sunday as he lit a flame at a genocide memorial in the country's capital. Today, light radiates from this place. Kagame was speaking at an event launching 100 days of mourning 25 years after the start of the 1994 genocide, which killed around 800,000 people in 100 days, the BBC reports. An estimated 250,000 are buried at the Kigali Genocide Memorial, where Kagame addressed a crowd of thousands. Kagame, the country's president since 2000, was the commander of a rebel force that helped end the slaughter. The killings began after a plane carrying President Juvenal Habyarimana, a member of the ethnic Hutu majority, was shot down on April 6, 1994. In the weeks that followed, extremist Hutu militias, assisted by the military and police, slaughtered members of the Tutsi minority, along with many moderate Hutus, the AP reports. Entire families were wiped out in an orgy of violence that killed an estimated 70% of the country's Tutsi population. Our bodies and minds bear amputations and scars, but none of us is alone, Kagame said at a ceremony later Sunday. We Rwandans have granted ourselves a new beginning. We exist in a state of permanent commemoration. As night fell, thousands of people holding candles gathered in the national soccer stadium, where survivors told their stories, Reuters reports. I named my children after all my siblings that died, said survivor Samuel Dusengiyumva.

(Aug 27, 2018 8:19 AM CDT) In August 1998, 11-year-old Nicky Verstappen disappeared from his summer camp tent; his body was found the next day. Now, an arrest in a case that has been major news in the Netherlands and that involved a massive DNA undertaking. The Guardian reports that as the 20th anniversary of Nicky's death approached, Dutch officials in May 2017 put out a request: that roughly 20,000 men in the Limburg area where Nicky was killed submit their DNA that October as part of a mass testing program. More than 14,000 did, reports the BBC. Jos Brech was not among them: The NL Times reports he left in October to hike in France's Vosges mountains, reportedly telling his family he'd submit his DNA upon his return. Except he didn't return, and his family reported him missing in April. But the DNA trail still led to the 55-year-old survivalist and former scout leader. DNA that Brech's relatives provided showed the killer--who left his DNA on Nicky's pajamas--was related to one of the donors, which helped authorities zero in on Brech. They were able to recover a sample of his DNA from his home and confirmed it was a match, which earned him a spot on Europol's most wanted list last week. The Guardian reports police received a tip from a Dutch national who had seen the police photos and was visiting a commune-like community on the outskirts of Castelltercol, Spain, some 30 miles north of Barcelona, that Brech was there. He was arrested Sunday and will be extradited to the Netherlands. Brech's name was known to police: He was stopped two days after the murder while in the area and was questioned, but police deemed him no more than a passerby. (Cops say this serial rapist was also sunk by family ties.)

(Jan 28, 2019 8:47 AM) Haotong Li was in a tie for third place heading into the 18th hole at the Omega Dubai Desert Classic in the UAE on Sunday. Then the Chinese pro golfer's caddie stood in the wrong place, at the wrong time. USA Today notes Mike Burrow apparently broke a new golfing rule that went into effect Jan. 1, stating that a caddie can't deliberately stand on or close to an extension of the line of play behind the player's ball when the player begins taking a stance for the stroke and until the stroke is made. Officials decided Burrow had been within Li's line of play, costing Li two strokes and sending him to 12th place--which, in effect, also cost him nearly $100,000 in prize money. The video replay isn't helping stem the controversy: Per ESPN, footage shows Burrow strolling away before Li got into position, but it was ruled Li had already been in his stance ; the clip circulating online shows Burrow stepping away at the exact same moment Li starts to assume his position. SB Nation calls it an irrelevant ticky-tack interpretation, while fellow pro golfer Paul McGinley tweets, This is so ridiculously marginal. The player should be given the benefit of the doubt. The rule changes are largely about the spirit of the game & player integrity not this pedanticness. Li himself seemed to be slowly but surely getting over the sting of his big loss: Early Monday, he posted a photo of himself hugging an unidentified child, tweeting, Such a tough day until i saw this lovely picture.

(Jul 15, 2020 5:40 PM CDT) Big-name Twitter accounts belonging to Barack Obama, Joe Biden, Elon Musk, Kanye West, and many others were hacked Wednesday in an elaborate cyberscam that relieved victims of over $110,000. Looks like crypto-scammers took over the accounts for more than two hours, posting tweets that urged people to send money to a particular Bitcoin address with the promise of a greater return, NBC News reports. Everyone is asking me to give back, and now is the time, said a tweet from Bill Gates' account. You send $1,000, I send you back $2,000. Some Twitter users identified the tweets as obvious frauds, but CNN Business reports that more than 320 transactions followed. We are aware of a security incident impacting accounts on Twitter. We are investigating and taking steps to fix it, Twitter said. We will update everyone shortly. The story has already made history on multiple fronts: It's the first crypto-scam to use the actual accounts of public figures instead of fake accounts, per the New York Times, and looks like the biggest-ever attack on Twitter. Coindesk adds that at least some hacked accounts used two-factor authentication--including its own. Other victims include Michael Bloomberg, Warren Buffett, and several crypto-coin services. We are lucky the attackers are going after bitcoin (money motivated) and not motivated by chaos and destruction, says cybersecurity expert Rachel Tobac in a text message.

(Feb 27, 2019 8:41 AM) Rep. Ted Deutch described the government's 135 migrant shelters as an unsafe environment at a Tuesday congressional hearing on the Trump administration's policy of separating migrant families, and produced some alarming stats to back up the claim. The Florida Democrat shared records showing the Department of Health and Human Services' Office of Refugee Resettlement, which is charged with caring for unaccompanied minors, received more than 4,500 allegations of sexual abuse and harassment between October 2014 and July 2018. Of those, 1,300 were serious enough to be referred to the FBI. The files overwhelmingly refer to allegations of abuse by other minors. But 178 complaints accuse staff members of inappropriate behavior ranging from touching children's genitals to watching them shower, reports NPR. This works out, on average, to one sexual assault by [HHS contractors] on an unaccompanied minor, per week, Deutch said before the House Judiciary Committee, per the BBC. The details are horrific. And yet, this is the first we've heard of it, he later told CNN's Brooke Baldwin. It only raises 1,000 other questions about what happened to the people who were investigated. Jonathan White, the US Public Health Service Commissioned Corps commander, testified that the vast majority of allegations prove to be unfounded when they are investigated. But in many cases, the staff members were removed from duty and ultimately fired, Axios reports. ORR only began collecting reports on alleged sexual abuse in October 2014. Since then, there have been more than 1,000 cases of alleged sexual assault per year, Deutch told Baldwin.

(Aug 12, 2019 4:45 PM CDT) New Zealand has bought back more than 10,000 guns in the first month of a government program approved after the shootings at two mosques in March. The country now prohibits ownership of most semi-automatic weapons. Another 1,269 firearms have been turned in under an amnesty provision, per the Guardian. Those owners can't be asked by police how they got the weapons or be required to show a current license. Nearly $130 million has been set aside to fund the buybacks. The banned weapons can be turned in until Dec. 20. Owners aren't paid for weapons if the amnesty provision is invoked, per NPR. After Dec. 20, an official told the Washington Post, there's no excuse for owning a prohibited weapon; the penalty can be two to five years in prison. Championed by Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, the legislation was approved by the nation's parliament, 119-1, soon after a gunman killed 51 people in two mosques in Christchurch. Some gun owners began turning in their weapons in disgust at the slayings. Others immediately hoarded guns and ammunition in anticipation of bans. Gun groups campaigned against the ban, saying everyone shouldn't be punished for the crimes of one person; the Christchurch attacker had bought his weapons legally. Australia's buyback program after a mass shooting in 1996 collected about 650,000 weapons. The program was effective; gun deaths, including suicides, plummeted.

(Nov 24, 2020 3:52 PM) The Dow Jones Industrial Average broke through 30,000 points Tuesday as investors were encouraged by the latest progress on developing coronavirus vaccines and news that the transition of power in the US to President-elect Joe Biden will finally begin. Traders were also encouraged to see that Biden had selected Janet Yellen, a widely respected former Federal Reserve chair, as treasury secretary, the AP reports. The Dow rose 454 points, or 1.5%, to close at 30,046. The S&P 500 index rose 1.6%. Treasury yields also rose as investors became more optimistic about the economy.

(Jul 2, 2020 6:47 AM CDT) America passed yet another alarming milestone in the coronavirus pandemic Wednesday, with new infections rising about 50,000 in a day for the first time. There were at least 50,203 new infections reported Wednesday, according to CNN, with Arizona, California, North Carolina, Tennessee, Georgia, and Texas reporting record numbers of new cases. The New York Times notes that amid major outbreaks in the South and West, the single-day infection record has been broken five times in just over a week. Tuesday also saw a record rise in COVID-19 cases, with more than 47,000 new infections reported. States including California have halted or reversed reopening plans, and authorities have urged people to stay home over the Fourth of July weekend--or at least limit gatherings, maintain social distancing, and avoid indoor events. The holiday weekend could be the perfect storm for another rise in cases, Dr. Joshua Barocas, an infectious disease physician at Boston Medical Center, tells CNN. The combination of travel, the combination of reopening--perhaps in some cases, too early--and the combination of people not necessarily following some of these preventive guidelines, he says. President Trump said Wednesday that he is all for face masks, though the Washington Post notes that he later mocked Biden for wearing a mask at events where the audience is 25, 30, 40 feet away.

(Mar 9, 2018 10:52 AM) Last Saturday, Laura Wolf stopped off at a Waffle House in her neck of the woods in Texas for a meal, and what she witnessed there--and what she did afterward--ended up changing the life of a teen Waffle House employee. Per KHOU, Wolf happened upon the La Marque restaurant on a morning when 18-year-old Evoni Williams, a recent high school graduate, was working one of her shifts, trying to scrape together funds to pay for college. As Wolf explains in a Facebook post, accompanied by a photo of the incident, she overheard an elderly customer sitting at the counter and tethered to an oxygen tank tell Williams that his hands don't work too good. It was then, without hesitation, that Williams took the plate from the struggling customer, IDed as 78-year-old Adrien Charpentier, and started to cut his meat. That's when Wolf snapped the photo, which has since gone viral on social media. This may seem small but to him, I'm sure it was huge, Wolf wrote of Charpentier, who Williams tells KTRK is a regular but hadn't been in until that day after a recent hospital stay. Since Wolf posted her photo, it's been shared more than 46,000 times and received more than 55,000 votes on Reddit, per the Houston Chronicle. And when Texas Southern University got wind of it, the college had a surprise for Williams: a $16,000 scholarship, which she plans to put toward a business management degree. Per KTRK, La Marque's mayor honored Williams on Thursday, with the guest of honor noting she was thrown by all the attention. It just came from the heart, she says. As for Charpentier, he's enjoying the publicity as well, joking with KHOU that they got a fancy picture of my suspenders in the back. (Something similar happened at a Chicago McDonald's a few years back.)

(Feb 12, 2019 4:32 PM) The latest trophy hunter to make waves paid $110,000--a record--to kill a rare mountain goat in Pakistan. Bryan Kinsel Harlan, as he was was identified in Pakistani newspapers, told Dawn News he took an easy and close shot to kill the wild Astore markhor in Pakistan's northern Himalayan region of Gilgit-Baltistan, and was pleased to take this trophy. Harlan--a Texas entrepreneur, according to Fox News--posed for smiling photos with the goat, which is Pakistan's official national animal and is also known as the screw horn goat thanks to the shape of its long horns, which can grow up to five feet. While many on social media wondered why it's legal to kill the majestic animals, officials and conservation groups tell the Washington Post such trophy hunts have actually helped the markhor. For decades, the goats' numbers had been falling due to poachers, deforestation, logging, and uncontrolled trophy hunting--along with many other reasons. In 2011, just 2,500 of the animals, which are native to the Himalayan ranges of Pakistan, India, and Afghanistan, were believed to remain. Sanctuaries were established and local hunting of the animals was banned in Pakistan, but officials decided to allow foreign hunters to kill 12 males per season, with the money raised by those hunts going to residents of the region (incentive not to poach the animals) as well as government wildlife agencies. And though such tactics have made things worse for threatened species in other countries, things have worked out in Pakistan, with the markhor population rebounding so much that by 2015 it was upgraded from endangered to near-threatened. (Cecil the lion and his son both met similar ends.)

(May 8, 2020 8:48 AM CDT) Albuquerque teenager Jose Nunez Rominez wants to work in law enforcement--and his actions after finding a bag of cash near an ATM definitely didn't do his career prospects any harm. The 19-year-old community college student tells CNN that he went to the Wells Fargo machine Sunday morning to get cash so he could buy socks for his grandfather. He says he spotted a clear plastic bag on the ground containing a foot-long stack of $50 and $20 bills. He called police and turned the money over to officers. Police say the bag, containing $135,000, had been left there accidentally by a Wells Fargo subcontractor filling the ATM. Nunez was honored at the Albuquerque police academy Thursday, where Mayor Tim Keller joked that even he would have been tempted to take just one of those bundles off the top. Whether you can believe that it is divine, or it's good luck or whatever, we were just talking about how--the irony that his career is so far leaning towards criminal justice, and he happens to be looking for a job, and we happen to be hiring, the mayor said, per KRQE. Police Chief Mike Geier said that the teen will be invited to apply for a job as a public safety officer while he's in school. He's has also been rewarded with $500 checks from three local businesses. Albuquerque ESPN Radio 101.7 FM presented Jose with a football autographed by former NFL linebacker Brian Urlacher, along with six season tickets for UNM football.

(Dec 29, 2020 3:04 PM) While the final weeks of President Trump's time in office were always going to be unpredictable, not many people thought he'd end up on the same side as Sen. Bernie Sanders in a clash with Senate Republicans. The president lashed out Tuesday after Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell blocked an immediate vote on a bill granting Trump's demand to increase stimulus checks from $600 to $2,000, Politico reports. Unless Republicans have a death wish, and it is also the right thing to do, they must approve the $2000 payments ASAP, Trump tweeted. $600 IS NOT ENOUGH! On Monday, Sanders threatened to filibuster if there was no vote on the measure. Dozens of House Republicans joined Democrats in approving $2,000 payments Monday night. A handful of Republican senators, including Sens. David Purdue and Kelly Loeffler from Georgia, have expressed support for $2,000 checks, but McConnell rejected Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer's call for a vote on the House bill Tuesday, the Washington Post reports. He said that the Senate would instead begin a process to address Trump's calls for $2,000 checks, an investigation of alleged voter fraud, and the repeal of Section 230 to place limits on tech companies. Those are the three important subjects the president has linked together, he said. NBC notes that linking the issues would get more GOP support for the proposed measure, while also making it less likely to pass.

(Jan 12, 2018 12:22 PM) On Thursday, the White House rejected a bipartisan deal to protect Dreamers--quickly overshadowed by the racist statement allegedly made by President Trump. On Friday, Jeff and MacKenzie Bezos announced a $33 million donation to provide 1,000 scholarships to DACA youth, the Wall Street Journal reports. According to the Washington Post, which Bezos owns, it's the largest donation ever made to TheDream.US. The donation from the Amazon CEO and his wife will provide each undocumented immigrant high-school graduate with $33,000 in college aid over four years. In announcing the donation, Bezos talked about his father, who was unable to speak English when he arrived in the US from Cuba as a 16-year-old. My dad became an outstanding citizen, and he continues to give back to the country that he feels blessed him in so many ways, Bezos said. TheDream.US was founded by a former Post publisher in 2014--Bezos' parents were early donors--and has given more than $19 million in financial aid to immigrants. Reuters reports 2,850 students are enrolled in colleges with the nonprofit's help. Candy Marshall, president of TheDream.US, says the Bezos' donation is a shot in the arm for Dreamer students at a time when some are questioning whether they should be in the United States at all. Bezos is currently the world's richest person, with a worth of about $107 billion as of this week, according to Forbes. Earlier this year, he had asked for ideas for charitable giving that would help people in the here and now.

(Oct 4, 2018 9:15 AM CDT) The Department of Justice is condemning a judge's ruling that blocks the Trump administration from ending protections for 300,000 immigrants living and working in the United States. A federal judge in San Francisco issued a temporary injunction Wednesday that bars the administration from ending a program that allowed people from Haiti, Sudan, Nicaragua, and El Salvador to stay in the US temporarily, the AP reports. The Temporary Protected Status program, or TPS, granted temporary protection to people because of war, epidemics, or natural disasters in their home countries, per CNN.

(Sep 16, 2020 3:24 PM CDT) If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. And in a piece for Vice, Edward Ongweso Jr. applies that lens to the video story of an UberEats driver who is seemingly on track to make $100,000 this year. The story was shared in a sponsored content effort from CNBC and financial services company Acorns, and it follows Sam Lyon, 26, who launched a self-created Uber Eats Challenge on TikTok in June. After the pandemic killed his income, the Oregon man decided to see how much he could make by working the max allowed by Uber Eats: 12 hours per day, daily. That's what he did for the full month, and the video touts his earnings: $8,357, which works out to almost exactly $100,000 a year if he keeps up that pace--much more, notes the video, than the $72,540 the average five-day work week earns. But waaaaait, writes Ongweso. The video's core premise of projecting one month's earnings into the year is absurd once you step back and ask whether a human being should spend 12 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year, inside of their car, a situation Ongweso sees as horrifying and potentially unsafe (commercial drivers can't work more than 60 hours a week, versus Lyon's 84). But that's not the craziest part. Ongweso does the math and determines that if Lyon kept us this pace, his take-home pay from Uber (meaning excluding tips) could actually be just $40,000 once car expenses and taxes are factored in. And due to his misclassification as an independent contractor, Lyon is on the hook for his own health insurance too. If not for the video's giant Acorns and CNBC branding, it would be indistinguishable from the ongoing PR blitz spearheaded by Uber to preserve its misclassification scheme, writes Ongweso. Read the full piece here.

(Oct 27, 2019 9:00 AM CDT) It is, as the BBC puts it, a stained, cigarette-burned cardigan unwashed in nearly three decades, and had you been a little more on top of the situation, it could have been yours for $334,000 on Saturday. The olive green, mohair cardigan in question commanded such a premium because it was worn by Kurt Cobain during Nirvana's iconic performance on MTV's Unplugged, leading the president of Julien's Auctions in New York to call it the holy grail of any article of clothing that he ever wore. Indeed: The BBC notes that it's now the most expensive sweater ever sold. Also on the auction block was Cobain's custom, left-handed Fender guitar that he played during Nirvana's In Utero tour; that fetched a healthy $340,000.

(Jan 8, 2020 8:53 AM) A staggering one billion animals are now feared dead in Australia's brushfires, but a much smaller group of 10,000 doomed animals is now drawing headlines. On Wednesday, professional shooters in a northwestern portion of South Australia began a five-day aerial cull of up to 10,000 feral camels. CNN reports the cull was given the greenlight by Aboriginal officials in the Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara Lands who say that in their pursuit of water, the animals are putting undo pressure on the area's remote Aboriginal communities and infrastructure. CBS News reports those dead camels that are reachable will be buried or burned; the rest will be left to the elements. The country's total camel population is thought to number about 1 million--meaning the impacted population represents about 1% of the whole, notes USA Today. As for the country's overall estimated animal death toll, the updated number of one billion came Wednesday from Chris Dickman of the University of Sydney. It represents those animals thought to be lost since September, either as fire victims or creatures who perished upon losing their habitat. About 80% of the sum--which includes mammals, reptiles, and birds, reports Bloomberg--are thought to have died in the hardest-hit state of New South Wales.

(Feb 3, 2018 11:44 AM) A bicyclist is suing the city of Portland for $566,000 after he hit a pair of concrete islands on his way home from the World Naked Bike Ride, causing him to crash and break his nose, arm, and two fingers, the AP reports. According to the Oregonian, the lawsuit states that a fully-clothed Charles Ziemer was pedaling back to his car after participating in the June 2016 ride when his wheels suddenly struck the islands. The lawsuit faults the city for failing to put reflectors or lights on the islands and situating them in a travel lane. An employee at the Portland city attorney's office says the city doesn't comment on pending litigation. The suit seeks $66,000 in medical bills, plus $500,000 for pain and suffering.

(Apr 27, 2017 12:16 AM CDT) Exactly how long have humans been in the Americas? A wealth of evidence suggests they arrived as early as 20,000 years ago, while the earliest record of modern humans in the world dates back 200,000 years to Africa (and they probably didn't leave until around 50,000 to 80,000 years ago). But researchers at the San Diego Natural History Museum say they've unearthed evidence that humans, or at least an unidentified species of Homo, were here 130,000 years ago--a bold and fiercely disputed claim, per the New York Times, based on mastodon bones and rock scratches found in Southern California in 1992. The claim, published in the journal Nature, is that the markings suggest the use of tools to extract marrow or process bone material to create more tools. Critics aren't holding back. Extraordinary claims require unequivocal evidence, one skeptic says, while an archaeologist adds: I was astonished, not because it is so good but because it is so bad. Others think such an early arrival is conceivable. For instance, the Denisovans broke from Neanderthals around 400,000 years ago and lived in Siberia, while bison came to North America by way of the Bering Land Bridge--which has disappeared and reappeared--135,000 years ago. What everyone agrees on is that the mastodon bones, which NPR reports were measured using sophisticated uranium-thorium dating tech, are 130,000 years old. If a human-like species cut them, it's an order of magnitude difference, one researcher says. Wow. (Our family tree is still very much a puzzle.)

(Oct 16, 2016 12:36 PM CDT) About 3,500 dogs of all breeds and sizes ran through the streets of Spain's capital with their owners in the fifth edition of the Perroton, or Dogathon, a yearly event that seeks to raise awareness about animal cruelty and encourage dog adoptions, reports the AP. US Ambassador James Costos received an honorary award for his country's efforts against animal cruelty. Costos said he was thankful for the honor. Days before the Dogathon, he tweeted a picture of him and his dog Greco, saying they would run to highlight the work of the US government against animal cruelty. Spain has jail penalties for cruelty against domesticated animals, but is divided concerning bullfights and bull runs. Some consider them savage, outdated practices, while others call the spectacles part of Spain's cultural heritage.

(Feb 6, 2018 7:17 AM) Bitcoin has been taking a beating in recent days along with more traditional investments. The cryptocurrency, which has been sliding downhill since peaking above $19,000 in December, dipped below $6,000 early Tuesday for the first time since October, though it later recovered to around $6,500, Bloomberg reports. Other cryptocurrencies have also fallen, wiping a total of more than $500 billion off their market value so far this year. And more sell-offs are expected, the Guardian reports. Agustin Carstens, chief of the Bank of International Settlements, which represents the world's central banks, warned in a lecture Tuesday that cryptocurrencies have become a combination of a bubble, a Ponzi scheme and an environmental disaster. He said there is a strong case for policy intervention, because authorities have a duty to educate and protect investors and consumers.

(Nov 16, 2017 3:48 PM) About 5,000 barrels of oil--that's 210,000 gallons--spilled from the Keystone pipeline in South Dakota Thursday. The company that operates the pipeline, TransCanada, says in a statement obtained by KSFY that the spill was completely isolated within 15 minutes and emergency response procedures were activated. The pipeline was shut down and crews, including TransCanada specialists from emergency management, engineering, environmental management and safety as well as contracted, nationally recognized experts are assessing the situation, the statement continues. An environmental scientist manager at the South Dakota Department of Environment and Natural Resources tells the Bismarck Tribune officials don't think any surface water bodies or drinking water systems are threatened.

(Jan 9, 2018 7:32 AM) A Houston-area couple who pleaded guilty to federal charges related to forcing a Nigerian woman to work nearly 20 hours daily taking care of their home and five children without pay for two years was ordered Friday to pay her more than $121,000 in restitution. Chudy Nsobundu, 57, and his wife Sandra Nsobundu, 49, also were sentenced by US District Judge Nancy Atlas to seven months in jail and seven months of home confinement, plus three years on probation. The naturalized US citizens originally from Nigeria recruited the woman there with the promise of a $100 monthly wage. Instead, authorities say they abused her physically and verbally while she worked at their home in the Houston suburb of Katy from September 2013 to October 2015, reports the AP.

(Feb 7, 2017 12:37 PM) In 2014, the ex-leader of Catalonia helped set up a vote on independence from Spain--and on Monday, 40,000 protesters stood up for him outside a Barcelona court. The New York Times reports on the start of the trial for Artur Mas, who was charged with civil disobedience for banding together with two other politicians to set up the past referendum, which ended up garnering a majority of votes for secession from all those who cast ballots. The nonbinding vote had been declared illegal by Spain's judiciary, and now prosecutors want to keep Mas and his two cohorts from running for office for a decade. The separatist demonstration outside the courthouse turned into a pro-independence show of force, per Politico Europe, with Mas supporters waving banners and yelling, You are not alone. Mas conceded he did help the 2014 vote along--Al Jazeera notes he was Catalonia's regional leader at the time--but he insisted he was only supporting an initiative that tens of thousands of volunteers organized (and which was deemed illegal by the courts just days before the vote). Only about 2.3 million out of 6.3 million eligible citizens voted, but of those, more than 80% said they wanted to break free from Spain. Mariano Rajoy, Spain's conservative prime minister, and his government don't want the autonomous region to succeed in its attempt to secede, though one of his reps told reporters after Mas' Monday hearing: No one is being judged for his political ideas, per Politico. Mas had earlier noted in court that independence isn't on trial here, democracy is on trial, Al Jazeera notes.

(Jan 3, 2017 6:15 PM) It's no wonder New York City traffic is so awful, with 13,600 taxis navigating the streets. But just 3,000 sedans could accomplish about as much, according to a new study. Using a computer formula, MIT researchers discovered that just 3,000 four-person vehicles could provide for 98% of the ride demands of Manhattan residents if everyone opted to share rides, while 2,000 10-passenger vans could account for 95%, reports CNNMoney. The model, particularly suited to self-driving cars since they would be able to automatically re-route themselves when necessary, used data from 3 million taxi rides taken over a week in Manhattan in March 2013 to pose real-time requests, then grouped passengers together based on destinations and sent empty vehicles to await requests in high-traffic areas, which made the system 20% faster, per Gizmodo. The result also meant less congestion and pollution. The downside was that passengers theoretically waited 2.8 minutes for a vehicle, and spent an extra 3.5 minutes traveling because of additional stops. If adopted, such a system would also put thousands of taxi drivers out of work, but drivers will be able to make the same amount of money working shorter shifts, while the customers will get the same level of service, cities will have fewer cars on roads, the commute experience will be better for everyone ... and the air is cleaner, the study author says. Motherboard reports it could also save some $121 billion lost annually as a result of the 5.5 billion hours people spend sitting in traffic (to say nothing of the 2.9 billion gallons of fuel that is also wasted). (A smart traffic light might also improve traffic.)